Changing rear wiper blade instructions?

I replaced the rear wiper blade for the first time (used car) with an OEM 85214-47010 part from the dealer. ($12.12 with CA tax, kind of pricey for a little strip of rubber.)

Anyway, this is what I did:

1. Removed the cap at the bottom of the arm by spreading it at the bottom and pulling.
   
2. Rotated the distal (blade) part of the arm until it clicked out, forming a sort of "T" shape
3. Pushed the distal part of the arm out of the proximal part with my thumb.
4. Pulled the blade down in the middle until it slid out of one of the endmost clips, then slid it out of all the other clips.
5. Slid the new rubber blade into the clips, starting from the outside edge of one endmost clip.
6. Slid one metal stiffener from the old blade into the new rubber's groove in the same direction as the rubber went in.
7. Like (6), but the other stiffener on the other side.
8. Put the distal arm into the proximal arm.
9. Rotate distal arm back parallel to the proximal arm, so that it clicks in.
10. Reinstalled the cap,

For (4), directions elsewhere (cannot find them now) said to pull the end of the blade down so that it would clear the end of the plastic arm. However, it would not do so, and it was putting a lot of force on the old and probably fragile plastic end clip. Pulling it down in the middle seemed to put less stress on things.

For (5) I tried initially to slide the rubber blade with both stiffeners installed into one end of an endmost clip, but it jammed not too far in. I considered reversing (4) but decided to try it piecewise first. Sliding in just the rubber was easy, as was sliding in the first stiffener (6). However, it was pretty hard to slide in the second stiffener, and it seems to have nicked off a tiny piece of the rubber blade near the end where it was fed in. (The missing rubber is on the side, about 1mm long, just below the end of the stiffener. I don't think it will make any difference. Also, it could be a manufacturing defect, since I didn't closely examine that section before installing.)

Anyway, I had expected to be able to just slide the reassembled rubber plus stiffeners into the arm, having done so previously in other wiper arms with similar design. Is there some trick for doing so? Maybe it only works from a particular end?