So, the problem seems to be that you must place an instance of anything that will be "nicknamed" into the layout where it will be created.
Here's a project with three layouts.
dropbox.com/s/r5rxpn95z1czkot/nickname_test.capx
One works because it has the two nicknamed sprites placed. "LayoutWorks"
One just tries to just create the nicknamed sprites but that doesn't work. "LayoutBroken"
The final layout uses an EventSheet ("EventDecls") to try spawning a copy of everything that needs to be nicknamed and then destroys it. This also doesn't work.
Do we have to place all these instances in every layout? Is there no way to get around it? That will be very error prone in projects with a large number of layouts and a large number of objects that will be spawned via nicknaming.
Thanks guys.