Winston the status shown in the URL you gave http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4124 show just anomalies. There are two other status: Matched and Uploaded shown.
So take a look at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4915
This solves my problem:
1 First I needed to delete all Matched in my iTunes (select all, then Delete, BUT do not click the checkbox to also delete the item from iCloud.)
2 The Matched ones remain in the iTunes list, with an iCloud icon with a "down arrow" inside the iCloud icon, signifying "can be downloaded".
3 Then select "all" those Matched ones again and with cntrl click and chose Download from the drop down menu, and hey presto, iTunes starts to download and replace all the previously deleted Matched songs in your iTunes library with their clean 256kb version. The Matched status stays in place and the iCloud icon with the downarrow disappears one by one as each song is downloaded.
4. Itunes seems to be downloading 3 songs simultaneously and takes on average about 3-4 seconds a song on my iMAC
I hope this helps you too.
Thanks for your help and ideas, but this definately seems to be working ...am still downloading at the moment.
I'll let u know if there were any hiccups during the download process.
Stuart