Excellent tips... many thanks to all of you!
I received ICS on my RAZR yesterday morning and went out of my mind for the first hour or so. My A/C was out and I couldn't even figure out how to get to my (non-favorite) contacts from the Phone app. Called Verizon tech support with a list of issues and I think I'm about getting mostly settled in now, thanks to a few things they helped with and the tips that you all have posted here. They seemed a bit overwhelmed there as well, and apparently the "mock up" they got of ICS didn't always match what actually came out, so they were searching online forums for some of the answers. I can tell by one item they read me that they probably got the answer here on droidforums.
I really like some aspects of ICS, especially finally being able to disable some built-in apps like VZNavigator. Also like some of the new widgets. Other stuff is kind of a bother to me and seems like change for the sake of change... especially when I have to go "deeper" to get to common items.
My remaining question right now: I removed a couple of apps from my home page by dragging them up to the top of the page and dropping them onto "X Remove." My understanding is all that should do is remove it from the home page, not from the App area. I've had a couple of them disappear from the Apps area as well, though. I can see them listed when I go to "Manage Apps," but they're not in the Apps area for plain old launching. One example is "Voice Search." I thought I was just getting it out of the way while I figured out how I wanted to lay out my home pages, but now I can't find it to launch it. Yes, I'm looking at "All Apps." Any idea how to bring it back from the twilight zone?
!!