just as an fyi to anyone else reading this thread...... no clue why, but after the 3rd attempt at deploying an image i finally got the user migration screen to pop up and transfer user data over.
I don't know if it was me being impatient (as i've lost track with all testing ive been doing) but the migration screen pops up after the 1st boot but takes a few mins to show up (or at least for me it did), so its kinda confusing as a new user as there's no indication its starting / running until that screen appears.I think i assumed once the image deployed and i could log on that i thought the user data was supposed to be there, which as it turns out doesn't seem to be the case.
Thanks to support for being patient with me