Thanks Nicolas,
I see the export button on the Products Listing page and I already dumped some data in to excel successfully.
I see how the filters work on this page so you can add variants as well. However, you still can not see each variant's characteristics [eg. Variant #6: size 36, color blue, price $50, quantity 5] from this page, you still must go the 'manage variants' page from within the product page. This is the data that I really want to export.. Please be sure to add this to your to do list, thanks!
OK quantities updated automatically, great.
Thanks again, feel free to respond again here if you have something to add - but not necessary. Regardless, i consider my initial issue resolved for now.
Regards
Scott