Ok, here's what I am gathering so far:

I created basically a dead dummy account, known as "FFXIV 1", during beta of FFXIV 1.0, and never really used it. Once release of 1.0 came about, I made the account now known as "FFXIV 2" and used it for my collector's edition of 1.0, my characters, etc. FFXIV:ARR open beta starts, I create my main character on the account "FFXIV 1" not realizing the complications this would create... Upon punching in the 18-digit serial number for FFXIV:ARR, SE automatically associated it to "FFXIV 2" because that had the FFXIV 1.0 data on it? Even though I had beta characters on "FFXIV 2."

So basically I'm gonna have to abandoned my "FFXIV 1" characters that I already dumped hours of playtime into, added friend to my friends list, etc etc... and start over on my "FFXIV 2" account... because neither I nor SE can seem to get our shit together... lol. UGH

There's no way to transfer character data between accounts, I imagine...