Ok, i seem to have maybe fixed it after several hours of deleting the same playlist over and over again. I will try to explain what i did..
1. Turned off Match on iPhone and iPad
2. Deleted 1000s of the Playlist in iTunes, but left one!
3. Put 2 songs in the 1 remaining problem playlist in iTunes on my Mac
(the 2 songs i chose were songs that were ON my iPhone already)
4. in iTunes I chose "Update iTunes Match" in the "Store" menu.
(let it finish, shouldnt take long)
5. Restart iTunes.
6. Turned on Match on iPhone
7. Created a playlist on iPhone with 1 song in it
(before it had a chance to populate any playlists from iCloud/Match)
8. Cold restarted iPhone
(Home and Lock button restart)
9. Opened the Music app on iPhone and waited for the playlists to populate.
I am not sure how many of those steps are necessary, but it worked for me! Well, on my iphone at least. I am afraid to turn Match on for my iPad. I will try that later.
Other notes: The single song playlist i created prior to Match populating the iPhone vanished. Also, i still seem to be having trouble with syncing my devices. It just sits at "Waiting for sync to start" and fails eventually.
Hope this helps somebody!!