Got my photos & videos back into camera roll! I woke this morning and all 701 were there. This is a few less than the most recent backup had, but good enough. So, there were a few things flakey about my experience restoring from iCloud. Therefore as many, including yourself have noted, iCloud IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A TRUSTED METHOD for backing up, storing or restoring photos & videos. If your photos & videos are important to you, backup to your computer at regular intervals.
What worked?
1: Following randers4's suggestion to review ezjules' post (see above for link).
2: When the most recent backup failed, I went to the next one available (2 days old)
3: When the Photo App displaying X of XXX images downloading in camera roll got hung up on the first few images, I powered down the phone and it resumed downloading more. However, it hung up 2 more times and then proceeded while I went to bed.
4: Phone was plugged into A/C outlet entire time, no incoming or outgoing phone calls or texts.
I am no longer going to back up photos or videos to the cloud. I will also cancel my additional storage capacity on iCloud. Why pay for secure storage that is so flakey?!?