Objects in Array / ArrayCollection with FlowLayout

Question

I am pretty baffled by what is happening here:
I am attempting to create an array of visual elements/containers (s:Group, to be precise), and each Group will contain a set of Labels as elements.
I've tried using both Array and ArrayCollection but am having a problem.
It seems to work okay if I simply use groupsArray:Array and do something like:
for (var i:int=0; i<totalGroups;i++) {
     (for var labelNum=0;labelNum<maxLabels;labelNum++) labelGroup.addElement(someLabel);
     groupsArray[i] = labelGroup;
When I add groupsArray[1] as a Panel element, the labels show up... the problem is, they are all stacked right on top of each other.
So what I need to do is be able to set Group.x, Group.y, Group.width, Group.layout, etc.
But when I try to do this, nothing shows up in the group.  What's more baffling is that something WILL show up okay for the final group in the queue, but not any of the others... only the last index in the array; I'm trying to set the properties using:
groupsArray[i].width = 300;
I thought maybe I could fix it by using an ArrayCollection, creating each group (with properties), and then using groupsArray.addElement(myGroup) and groupsArray.getItemAt(index)... but none of this seems to work...
The thing that confuses me the most is: (1) i'm getting no compile or runtime errors; and (2) the correct group and its label children show up fine (with x, y, width, and layout correct) for the very last item in the array, but none of the others...

Answer 1

here's a basic example:
var groupArray:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection();
var groupLayout:HorizontalLayout = new HorizontalLayout();
for (var i:int=0;i < 10;i++) {
var pageGroup:Group = new Group();
pageGroup.x = 60;
pageGroup.y = 60;
pageGroup.width = 300;
pageGroup.layout = groupLayout;
// parse through XML file for the page and for each word, insert it as a clickable text object
for (var x:int=0;x < 20; x++) {
     var wordLabel:Label = new Label();
     wordLabel.text = "word"+x.toString();
     pageGroup.addElement(wordLabel);
groupArray.addItem(pageGroup);
// tests:
groupPanel.addElement(groupArray[1]); // shows nothing inside Panel
groupPanel.addElement(groupArray[9]); // displays the Group (ie. all children labels) correctly inside Panel, with HorizontalLayout working
// I have also tried: groupPanel.addElement(groupArray.getItemAt(1));
// which gives compile error 1118: Implicit coercion of a value with static type Object to a possibly unrelated type mx.core:IVisualElement.
<s:Panel id="groupPanel" />