As I previously mentioned, a few days ago I was testing some new features on Google CSE. Unfortunately nothing worked as expected. I tried using the forums and directly contacting one of the CSE team members with no results. Today, using a new account, I started fresh and everything worked as advertised.
Looks like Google’s Achilles Heel is client support and this doesn’t look like a issue to be fixed soon as Google is betting on crowdsourced support rather than investing in it. Short lesson: if something doesn’t work in Google and is not vital (gmail/adsense/adwords) create a new account and start from scratch