I guess I must have missed it in the documenation before, but there is some direction given there. I'm at a point now where I'm pretty sure I can resolve the conflicts:
DB: download online version of DB - unfortunately that wipes my verbage in the DB.
OB: update FB calls - again I believe that will wipe the verbage in my interface (as the affected called Functions have generic interfaces now - ex. IN0, IN1, etc.)
So probably a better question would be, if there's not a painless way to recover from these instances, to be able to at least avoid them. I'm guessing these were due to people monitoring something online (in a DB or for whatever reason going up into the Interface online) and then inadvertently something changes and they give the wrong answer to whether or not to "save the changes". My automatic response to anything like that is not only no but hell no. But in these cases with S7 that might be a flaw.