I was on the verge of finishing before lunch but have been out in the afternoon. Came back to it and plugged the gaps just now. Not sure what you mean about the missing cells, although I don't have a paper copy to hand, but the "bottom row" is just meant to be a line in which the phrase is to be entered. I'd find it amazing if there was another printing error, the second in three weeks, that chopped that off as well as the bottom row of the grid!
It took me a while to realise that this was going in a whole other direction from actual current EV setters! For a while in the middle, before making the breakthrough, my enthusiasm for the puzzle was waning but it perked up markedly near the end once the penny finally dropped. Nice effort by a new pair of names to the setting business, although I suspect that the in-joke implies that Ian and Steve have been in the game for a while.