> Sorry, I don't see why a pagecount_assign should ever fire before a load regardless of where in class heirarchy it is placed.

Just test this.

open the form designer, set the pageframe pagecount to 2
make sure that 2 is written in the property as Bold "2"
run your form
your sequence will occur
now open the form again, right click on the pageframe pagecount, press resttodefault
run your form
my sequence will occur

I will try to explain later.