I keep getting notified that I have "friends" who have posted a new work.... but when I click on the title I am told it does not exist on Caedes... what's the deal?

that usually means it has been uploaded but not approved by a mod yet.

See here. Answer - the friend's notice goes up when the image is uploaded, but you can't view the image til a mod approves it. I don't check my friend's list as soon as I get a notice - I wait around and check it after a while.

Oh--h-h-h-h-h-h.........

and then there's the people that delete it before you get there .. in a never-ending shell game ..

nope, it's not there .. you lose .. pay up

Eventually we will only show the notice when an image is available, but this is not as easy to do as just showing it all the time (as you would imagine).