yes, project runs as expected without errors.
the workaround i was able to find yesterday was at after navigating to the "Package Contents" tab, i noticed a "bin-release-temp" directory was created in my project directory with the .swf and app.xml files inside. I then manually copied the rest of the mission-critical assets into this new temp directory, navigated away from and back to the "Package Contents" tab twice and voila, the manually copied assets magically became visible and available to be packaged.
