Kissa,
You're welcome to use any deck you'd like for the IDS. We've had at least a couple of people (sravana and Hooked on TdM come immediately to mind) who have IDSd with one or more versions of TdM.
Skimo,
Can you post a pic of your trimmed DM? I bet it's gorgeous.
QoS,
Glad you got over that first bump! It can be so easy to get derailed.
Onyx,
The four cards that are giving you problems probably hold a message for you.
2_J,
Going with what the cards tell you is always the best way to go in my book. After all, you're the one who's using the deck, so the interpretations should come from you, not from what the author says. And the wonderful thing about non-pictorial pips
bugeyed: did I just say that?
) is that they can mean whatever you decide they mean. I don't remember the poster or the thread (although it may be in the first IDS), but someone was a passenger on a long card ride at night came up with meanings for herself (I'm pretty sure the poster was female) for what each of the Minor suits represented and then what the progression of the numbers meant. She posted it all and I thought it was absolutely inspired. It made perfect sense at least from the point of reading it. Since I don't use non-pictorial decks (at least not yet), I don't know how useful it would be in practice though.
Noelle,
IMHO, trying to force the same meaning to apply across different situations is much the same trap as trying to use keywords to understand what a card is about. The Fool in a relationship reading may refer to innocence, going into the relationship without expectations or even being a fool for love. In a business/career context, it might mean taking risks that others find foolish but that pay off in the end. In a spiritual context, it might mean opening oneself up to the spiritual journey or beginning the spiritual journey.
Although I wouldn't recommend it for actual interpretations, Tarot Made Easy by Nancy Garen has 34 different meanings for each card. For the Fool, she says it's about ambivalence where romance is concerned, a new enterprise where work is concerned and being acutely aware of the divinity's presence in one's life where blessings are concerned. Again, I wouldn't use those exact meanings, but you can hopefully see how the differences in meanings reflect the particular situation while still staying true to the card.
Rodney