What did I do wrong/what did I miss?

[Spiff]

So I have a new iMac at work. May 2011 21" core i5 2.7 ghz with 2g ram, soon to be upgraded thanks to our sponsors. It has ML installed on it. I am currently using the last of the great whites , 2.16ghz core2duo with os10.6. I tried to use migration assistant to move things from the great white to the latest greatest. =)

1) Moving information from the old to the new - migration assistant seemed to work well, until I found that it migrated my old account, kept my new account as well as added guest account. So I had four accounts, two of which had administrative privileges. Since I only needed my old account, I deleted the new account originally set up on the new computer. Big mistake. I no longer have the capability to change accounts on the computer. Good thing I had a back up of the HDD and nuked and paved the original OEM disc. Any way to make a clean transition with Migration assistant, or will it always be messy? Why did the assistant not migrate the stuff to the new account, but add the old account?

2) With migration assistant, I have to register a lot of my software again. Is that normal?

3) With a refurb machine from Apple, they do not supply installation software, incase things get buggered up? Good thing I made a backup of the HDD.

4) Boot Camp. Not accepting XP any more. And, with Windows 8 out, 7 has become scarce. I am having to order it to get my computer working in the office. That's my issue and y'all can't help much with that (just a rant)

5) I cannot use the option key on startup to get a selection of discs that can start up the mac. I am using the wireless keyboard supplied with the refurb. I have to start up the mac, go into system preferences and then select the starup disk. I thought you could do that with the option key as the iMac was starting up. I've tried both USB and Firewire connections. No go. What am I missing?

Thanks for reading. Look forward to learning the errors of my ways

FYI. I nuked, paved, and just starting fresh, moving over files as I discover them, rather than doing the migration assistant.

[ADent]

3) Machines do not ship with software disks or USB sticks anymore. There is a recovery partition on the drive and if the drive goes out completely you can boot off of ROM and download the 4GB OS install via the internet.

5) Have you tried a wired keyboard?

[Spiff]

I'm bringing a wired keyboard in tomorrow. We'll see how that works.

Is there a way to boot up from the ROM with a normal working HD in order to download the OS? I can then make a USB stick of it? Maybe? Kinda sorta? No?

[Speedy]

I would setup the new iMac as a new computer, fresh out of the box. That used to be easy because you could nuke and pave a new system by booting from a DVD. Once the new system was installed and it rebooted, you would be asked if you wanted to import from an old machine, click yes, connect via FireWire and everything would move over. No new user accounts would be created. Now with the recovery partition with ML, I have no idea how to do it. It especially sucks if you create a user account on the new machine with the same short name, etc.

I normally don't need to re-register software moved with MA but now things are a bit more sophisticated.