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It's simple; macro expansion treats a . as a terminator, so you can't use field or property references in a mcro-expression. If you read a little aboutr macro-expansion in the docs, it's obvious.
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D'ohhhh! You're right. Here I was all this time assuming that it had to do with some subtle difference in the way that VFP treated properties of an object vs. standard variables.

(But that being said, Ed, don't you think your last sentence is a little harsh? I've read more than a little about macro-expansion, and I am fully aware of how the "." terminator works. I missed the obvious answer, assuming something more complicated -- this is not an uncommon reaction to technical issues, even from decent programmers or IS folks. It seems a bit of a leap to assume and state that I have not "read a little about macro-expansion.")