Mike,
I'm betting the bearing set you have is a "half groove" set. That is, the shells that are marked "lower" have no groove in them and the uppers do have a groove, right?
It appears that Clevite and FM both decided awhile back that they could save money by not manufacturing a separate lower thrust bearing half. Apparently a full groove is okay on the thrust bearing and all you get is two "upper" halves. At least all of the bearing sets, other than the high performance/competition series 3/4 grooved bearings, I've seen for the last several years have been this way. Go ahead and use the bearings you have, they'll be fine as long as the clearances check out.
As for "applying force against the crank while torquing this one down" - I don't know what you mean. Can you be more specific? Apply what kind of force and in which direction to the crank, while torquing what down? In any case, it is not necessary to apply any force to the crank while torquing down any of the mains. You should rotate it after each cap is torqued to ensure there is no binding, and once all the caps are torqued you should check the thrust clearance, but other than that I'm not sure what you could be referencing.
