LostinSpaceman (Great name by the way)

The Last sentence of your paragraph is exactly how I was doing it.  I was changing the parent without exporting the geometry and reimporting it as a prop.  I thought it necessary to get that
stickiness that I alluded to earlier.

As a matter of philosophy, why would the modeler choose to make it a CR2 rather than a prop?

I do see your point but as I said, I've seen this before with respect to other models.  Weapons are often made as conforming figures rather than props. I also see that Non stick placement happen with respect to such props such as Belly Button Piercings, Necklaces, and nose piercings.  Strangely, I've never see the behavior with respect to earrings!  Once I reparent earrings that belonged to say V3, Aiko 3 has no problem keeping them in place.