Yes you were right, when I zoomed in closely the points were touching, but the curves had a gap in them. I was expecting the command to work like Maya's "stitch" and merge the edges together and didn't realize how much of a role the distance between edges played in determining if they would join. I suspect when you get to the documentation aspect there may be some feedback added into the Command Options area when commands fail.

In the end the gap helped me out because I just blended the surfaces together which gave me the effect I was after, as well as opened my mind to and additional technique.

Thanks for pointing out that #2 is just the way the surfaces are displayed. So now I know to trust the curves for the best representation of the surfaces I'm creating.

Just in case I am attaching the 3dm of the model in the images.