iCloud not syncing + Text Messages not forwarding to Macs since adding new devices

tl;dr: despite being logged in, SMS not syncing and Messages/iCloud not staying up to date. \-- my personal ecosystem was: iphone SE 2022, iphone SE 2020, macbook air (m1), macbook pro (m1), iPad mini (5), apple watch (6) right after iOS 18 was released, i added: iPhone 16, macbook air (m3), iMac (intel) and more recently: iMac (m1) confirmed that theyre all logged in to the same icloud account. as far as i can tell, either the iphone 16 or iOS 18 broke my text message forwarding, but it may have been related to activating one of these other new macs. IIRC, iOS 18 introduced text forwarding on by default, which would explain why i cant find that setting as referenced in some apple support docs. im getting imessage but not getting regular SMS/MMS on any of my macs now, and i occasionally get hiccups and failures on SMS texting from my phone. i am checking and force-syncing messages to icloud on my devices, and on macbook air (m1) when i checked today, i saw this: https://preview.redd.it/5ebo6v2tfjie1.png?width=932&format=png&auto=webp&s=92c2c69aeef15bccac4104092414dbd481ea90f3 today is feb 11. if its being told to sync with iCloud, why is it so far out of date? i have been using this machine for the last few days, so it should have had ample time to reconnect and keep things synced.