The easy one 1st.
Is there a clear list of needed items for a report developer to use the run time as it was intended?
- not really. The MSI contains everything you need, so no reason for such a list(?).
re. best version of cr; CR 2008, CR 2011, but reports created in CR XI R2 should also work just fine. The fact that all of this worked with CR XI R2, may not be of consequence here as things do change from version to version (um, no I do not have a list of changed things 
).
I'd still like you to consider my suggestions, irrespective of your experience with CR XI R2.
- Ludek