iCloud & Skype - both leave me out in the cold

I've been meaning to post this since the switch from mobileme to iCloud, but I've been loathe to get into it any deeper.

Plus . . . by waiting, maybe the best advice and approaches have sorted themselves even further ?

I've certainly been struggling by the past couple years, and can't afford to update everytime they innovate, hence I may well be in not such a small minority here : someone still on Leopard, and still using an iPhone 3G.

I even had to let my monthly phone-bill be the most expendable cost and drop AT&T well over a year ago . . so I was using Skype on my iPhone, but more about that at the end.

When Mobileme ended June 30th, I waited a few hours after migrating thru the Apple provided links, but nothing was happening. ( I may have neglected to restart, if that made a likely difference )

So I followed Wilmut's advice here and changed a bunch of settings like IMAP-this and SMTP-that

http://www.wilmut.webspace.virginmedia.com/notes/icloudmail.html

But my brother did nothing with his 1st-gen iPhone outside of the "migrate now" and he's fine !

Me ? . . . I've got 3 darn Inboxes now and mail sent from the phone never shows on my Mac at home !

I saved the Mail app pre-changes from an external clone . . would dropping that in where my current Mail is fix much ?

Btw - the .Mac Account in the image there ? . . . still shows "Updated 7/1/12" . . . at 7 minutes past midnight, California time.

Within days of this lovely mess, I also took iTunes "urgent gift' of some app updates, including Skype.

Thanks for the warning that this new Skype now would not work on my 3G !!

No amount of searching could find Skype 3, and even ones labelled 3 still wouldn't be recognized by iTunes !

Any ideas folks ?

The Skype chat-rep repeatedly offered the lame assurance that I still had Skype on my Mac. ( after confirming Skype couldn't find an app that was days old at that point )

"Great buddy . . but I don't need a phone there . . . I need a phone on my phone !"

Kind'a what I'm still paying for.

Help !!