Have the offline map feature work -- all I see is 'tile is out of this offline map', but I can't zoom or scroll very far in any direction to get to any tiles. Not a lot of use when you are lost!

Always when you see tile "Tile is out of this offline map" it means that there is no such tile on current zoom level in your offline map.

There is solution for it - in "Mobile Atlas Creator" program you can add more that one selection.

For example:
1. select your whole country area on map and check only upper levels (e.g. 1-5 zoom) for it and click "Add Selection",
2. after that select your city (or any interesting area) and mark detailed levels (e.g. 6-14 zoom) and press "Add Selection" again.

As result offline map will be created containing both selections and will take up less disk space (than you've prepared whole country area with all zoom levels at once).