I know I am responding to my own question, but I found two efficient
ways of solving Problem 1 (returning the number of blanks in a
dynamic range  in code) that I thought the members might be interested:

Solution 1: ActiveWorkbook.Names
("ranAllUploadCol").RefersToRange.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeBlanks).Count

Soltion 2: WorksheetFunction.CountBlank(ActiveWorkbook.Names
("ranAllUploadCol").RefersToRange)

In both of these solutions, ranAllUploadCol is a named  dynamic range.
Thanks for your input AJ. Your solution works great. I'm still
looking for the solution to Problem 2.