Am I the only one getting the worlds biggest run around on the icloud mess?

Once iclould was paid for and downloaded all books, movies, and half of itunes content was lost. Support has now ask that I provide entire purchase histroy and data info. I had assumed that this was what the icloud was all about. In addition all email uploads rarely work, the icloud mail system is simply a mess in that it is extremely slow. Am I the only one - and what has been the process for others in retrieving lost purchases?

HIgs.