Henry, thank you so much for all of your observations and advice above while I was trying to charge my roadster at one of the new Tesla destination charging stations. I really appreciate it. If you are ever in the Washington DC area, let me buy you lunch or something to try to return the favor.
In the end, it is so simple, I think. I say I think because I did not have an opportunity to extensively do more testing since I was departing and only discovered how to make my roadster reliably work with the Tesla charger on the morning of my departure. But I also stopped at another new B&B Tesla destination charger on the way back and my roadster reliably charged.
The evening after you sent your message above I read through the entire 45 pages of this post, something I probably should have done before but had not. Somewhere in the middle was a description of several Can SR beta testers having to hold in the thumb latch for several seconds before and after plugging in to successfully start charging. You also suggested above:
Hold the thumb latch all the way towards the Roadster while plugging the MS connector in. Then release the latch slowly and make sure it springs all the way back.
So, having tried just about everything else but doing that with the thumb latch (having not thought about doing that), I tried holding in the thumb latch while plugging in the Model S connector to the Can SR.
Yes! The car sharted charging just like it should, working perfectly. This was the same charging station at which the three evenings before I had plugged and unplugged the car, and waited while various error cycles occurred, pressed the reset button the Tesla charger, wiggled the wires, shaken the charging unit and tried just about everything else I could think of to try to get it to start charging in a way that did not appear to be random (i.e. after many error cycles, charging eventually started -- see my post above).
In hindsight, prior to reading all of the pages of this posting, I did not realize that the Can SR thumb latch did more than just clicking the Tesla connector into place. I see now, however, that it also apparently has an internal electrical function.
So in summary, now I know that to reliably initiate charging for my roaster on a Tesla Model S charger, hold in the thumb latch, plug in the Model S connector, and then release the thumb latch several seconds later.