Hmm, I wonder if the Import issue could be remedied by making sure the default file matches the format you come in with?
** EDIT ** I tried importing from 23 to 24 with only 32 conferences (no independents) and didnt see any problems.
I have two different associations with less than 33 conferences and they both import but as soon as you click on the human coach office to go to Dashboard in both imports I start getting un-handled exceptions. It works until then and then menus start disappearing making them both unusable, so I would test thoroughly, maybe even sim a test thru to the next year before investing a lot of time.