Okay, I did some research. At least in v6 of MM, it appears the entire DE class is erased and re-created. That would explain why custom methods, etc. are destroyed.

But, I also have a solution.

I am going to create a "dedecorator" base class and subclass it accordingly. I will drop the dedecorator class on the dataenvironment class. The dedecorator class will provide the additional functionality necessary to keep the persistance layer in tact. When the de class gets erased and re-created, I'll just have to re-drop the dedecorator class back on.

For more information, see "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" (Gamma, Helm, Johnson & Vlissides, 1995), p.175. It describes the Decorator pattern.

Paul