John,
It may help explain what I see as a major and somewhat surprising perception gap. I can actually *see* controls painting onto the screen in one of mine. PMFJI, but would you be able to post a code sample that shows how the controls are being loaded, any code that's running when they're loaded, how the binding is being done, etc.? Doesn't need to be the code for the entire form, just whatever you believe is relevant and detailed enough to get an idea of what is running under the hood.
Thanks,
Kevin