Cannot figure out workflow in Pages 5.1

I am not sure if this is an iCloud, iWork, Pages, iPad, Mavericks or iOS issue. Please redirect me if that would be better.

I use documents from all kinds of applications: Sibelius (music notation software), pdf, sound, word (Microsoft), pages (iWork), jpegs, web archives, everything.

I cannot get anything except Apple products documents to save in iCloud, so I cannot use it for my main cloud server.

I am using dropbox to make all items available in all devices and places.

With Pages (and some other apps), I seem to have to open a document, and when I edit then save again from my iPad, it makes a zip file, and also saves a copy in iCloud or Pages or somewhere or other!

So in order to keep from having several documents scattered all over in various stages of editing (some of which must be secured) I have to save the edited item, then go track it down in whatever app I used and delete the old one. Since I cannot see both at once on the iPad, I am always afraid I am deleting the wrong one, but that hasn't happened so far thank goodness!

I am so sick of lugging my laptop around, and would like to switch to an iPad for short meetings when possible. I don't mind redoing things when I get back to the MacBook Pro a little, but this is getting to be a very complicated and time consuming workflow.

Am I just asking too much of this combination of apps and devices?

Or am I just missing something and needing to practice?

Any advice or ideas out there?