Thank you polyparrot! The coming together flat is all due to the original quilter. She did very good work, but probably did not take the seminar/classes that were offered. I consider paper piecing to be "not my strong skill set" stuff and can see and understand the issues faced very well.
It was an actual Judy Neimeyer kit and was more on the newsprint side, but she had used full pieces of tape which had been sewn through and pressed and sticky spots. Just as I thought I got all the paper off, I realized there was still some left in pressed down seams. Fortunately, her seams were nice and strong and survived the tugging.
If the top is indeed mine, I'll spend more time picking off some of the chads and spots on the back. I'm wondering with some of it, maybe she used White Out (typewriter correcting fluid) for positioning dots and paper stuck to them? Right now I can still give it back with a smile and having had the fun of putting it together, but I am in danger of a failed foster. That's what my dog friend says when one comes to be fostered but ends up adopted instead.
I might have missed something in my rotating stuff back and forth, but I think two of the points needed to be switched. I can't explain it well, but I think with all the mirror imaging going on with the 8ths, when it came time for the center star, that was done in 4ths and wasn't really mirror imaging in the same way the triangles were, but rather the square quarters should have been the same with a 1/4 turn.