@Robert Weaver the out of the box Authenticated Users role is configured (Authenticated checkbox on the Web Role) such that it is inherited by signed in users (i.e. you do not need to assign it directly to users, the exception to this is if you have multiple Web Roles that have been set for inheritance in which case the other role could be being used as only 1 will inherit). Other Web Roles need to be assigned to the respective Contact record.
If manually assigning roles, there is difference between Standard and the Enhanced Model you may find old documentation that shows the Standard model way of doing things. The Power Pages Management App, has a Portal Contact form for Contact records, on that form you will see a subgrid at the bottom of the first tab, this is where you can assign Web Roles - note the subgrid will only be on that specific form not all forms. (in the standard model you could assign from the Contact or the Web Role, but enhanced it is just from the Contact)
The order of adding a List or adding Table Permissions should not matter.
One item that I noticed in the exercise is that it gets you to create a new column and then add that column to the criteria of a view. That new column will contain no data until populated (or a new record is created in which case it will get the default value, and even then the default value is No but the criteria is to show only Yes), as it is now part of the view criteria the view will have no data to show as no records match the criteria of Yes.
Also, you could have experienced a cache issue - where the Portal is reading from its cache but your updates are not in the cache. Usually, the Preview button from the Designer clears the portals cache (but sometimes it doesn't and there is no indication that it hasn't).
