I rebuilt my image using the Attract Mode build and updated everything following Floob's advice. I redid it last night from scratch - and editing the config.tx and cmdline.txt files were successful. I presume I must have missed something or other that caused an issue with the folders. I still need to try Cyberduck, but am now optimistic about being able to SSH.

Hopefully it was just an issue with my install. Thank you for all of the help. Will keep you posted.