How do I force the ICS browser to finish syncing bookmarks?
Well, for the moment I'm not coming up with any solution, so I've up and bought ChromeMarks. I went for the pay version because I REALLY wanted to manipulate the bookmarks on the device. If you just need to see them on the device, then the free version (ChromeMarks Lite) does a fine job. 

I have no idea what the real problem was, but it was worth $1.99 to me to have it solved immediately (especially since the Browser's built-in bookmarks can't be viewed in any kind of list mode - just the icon view).