Dammit, I hate refusing.

Not sure if this will help but when the arrow uses the menu for the first time, it's because I'm selecting 'Copy Material' from the Edit menu.  After that, every time I use the menu it's because I'm using 'Paste Material' from the Edit menu.  The plane has a material applied to it that must be used as a base material to work from.

Then when I go into the Materials Lab and change the values it's to ensure their total does not exceed 100.  For example Reflection set to 75 would mean Diffuse/Ambience needs to be reduced to 25 to compensate.  Same rule for transparency, and remember that on transparent objects reflection is controlled by refraction, not reflection.

Diffuse and Ambient colours always need to be the same as each other and for the Sky & Fog settings and any lights you create, shadows need to be black and set to a value of 100.

That just might make the video make a little more sense