Man, this doesn't seem to have ANY logic. Maybe simply a corrupt layout.
I can most certainly rebuild the layout and it works, it's just a friggin lot of work. I have many layouts I will need to rebuild.
I deleted ALL instances of text and textbox.
Some times the export works better and some times worse. I can delete one layer or another, with no predictable result.
I guess I will have no choice but to carefully rebuild the layouts....