Alrighty then. As promised this is me getting back with my experience:
I contacted EA, asked for a callback which literally took less than 1 minute & I was chatting with a very friendly, sympathetic young lady. I explained to her all my problems, namechecked the forum & that you all suggested that a rollback was the solution, she instantly agreed with me, apologised profusely for the inconvenience & tried rolling back 12 hrs. The 1st attempt didn't solve the issue so we agreed to try a full 24hr rollback, all the while she stayed on the line chatting whilst talking me through it (very important to me, because I HATE being put on hold). The 2nd rollback solved the problem (for now at least), she thanked me for my patience & the whole process took less than 1hr from start to finish.
I guess the message here is that yes, it's incredibly frustrating when something like this happens but don't delay, get in touch with EA asap & there are people there who can offer excellent customer service without too much disruption to your game progress.