Alright folks. I've solved the elusive pause/unpause problem. Wanna' know how it's done? You guessed it...instance variables for every freakin' object in the program. Yuck. But it works.
I've put comments on everything in the hud and layout entry sheets to explain how it works as best as I can. Unfortunately, I believe I will have to do this for every layout/object...some serious time consumption coming my way.
I have a new, yet smaller problem now. If I pause and then unpause in layout 2, the layout repeats before moving onto layout 3.
(ignore the problem of layout 3 disappearing at the beginning for now, this is probably something easy compared to the other problems)
Thanks to all who posted something useful, namely Nimtrix and ramones for giving me ideas, and thanks to the manual for explaining instance variables!
philipcomposer.com/comic/wayofthesaxcapx.capx