Honestly, having a bit of problem sorting out exactly what is going on . . . Too many words!

Regardless, I will post some random tidbits that may (or may not) help.

1) Simply deleting iPhoto shouldnt trash your pictures. The iPhoto Lbrary folder should still be on your Mac
2) Aperture tells you where your Libraries are. If you choose Switch Library it scans for available Aperture Libraries and you should be able to see the path to them
3) You can import directly from your iPhoto Library to Aperture (and probably did when you installed Aperture)
4) Missing Manual series are great and cover a range of topics

Hope this helps