Text shifting on imposed PDF; distill vs export

Hi experts. Please help me solve a mystery!
Mac OS 10.7, InDesign CS5 7.0.4
Here's the problem: I export a PDF (using modified version of the built-in X-1a PDF export preset to include bleed and crop marks)
Fonts are embedded, no problems when preflighting in Acrobat.
The printer imposes the file by placing my PDF into spreads in InDesign CS6 on Mac (OS unknown) and exports to PDF using unknown settings (The PDF producer is Adobe PDF Library 10.0.1).
The imposed PDF I get back from the printer has text shifting (the PDF i send to him looks fine--no gaps).
It looks like there are random blank spaces in the text and misaligned numbered lists. (left image, image on right shows original ID file)
Our production person insists that my exporting the PDF is to blame and says we must use distiller for sending files to the printer.
When I print to postscript then distill, the shifting does not occur in the imposed PDF i get back from the printer.
Everything I have read on here for years has said the postscript/distill route is bad/old/unnecessary/proof I should get a new printer.
Production claims fonts are not properly embedded when exporting PDF (patently false as the document info show that fonts are embedded).
Unless I can explain, and fix the shifting type problem, I will have to stick with postscript/distilling workflow.
(Although this is also not a guarantee--i have had the text shift/gap happen in PDFs that went through distiller. There the problem seemed to be a bullet glyph that was CID-H encoded.
When I switched the font from a TT to PS version of the font, it used different encoding and the shifting/gap was fixed in the PDF i got back from the printer.)
Please share your thoughts!
Thanks.

OK. I've gotten the original PDF files that were exported from CS5 and then placed into a new CS6 document and then exported from the OP. By the way, the problem is not limited to exported PDF, but also with PDF created by distillation of PostScript from CS5.
I cannot replicate the problem by simply creating a new InDesign CS6 document and placing pages into the new document and exporting.
However, I noted that some crop marks in the original CS5-exported PDF file were not in the CS6-exported file. That leads me to believe that something edited the CS6-exported PDF file. Furthermore, the CS6-exported PDF file was not only labelled as PDF/X-1a, but it also had the Trapped True key on. For exported PDF, InDesign provides no trapping function and absolutely no way of setting that trapping key in the PDF file. But Adobe Illustrator does provide the means of doing trapping and/or labeling a PDF/X file as being trapped with the Trapped True key.
At this point, I believe that some combination of the following events occurred:
*     The CS5 exported PDF file(s) were edited, possibly in Illustrator or with object editing in Acrobat Pro either with native tools or third party plug-ins and then resaved with the resultant PDF file(s) placed in the CS6 document. This editing may have messed up spacing of text that used ligatures, alternate characters, old style figures, etc. even though such text was not directly edited.
*     The CS6 exported imposed spreads were subsequently opened in Illustrator or some other third party trapping engine and resaved with the Trapped True key set. In the process of resaving the file, problems per (1) above occurred.
Conclusions:
(1)     Whether PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-4 was used for export anywhere in this process is irrelevant. The designs in question didn't use any transparency or color management. Furthermore, no CID-encoded fonts were involved and no font name conflicts were involved. However, the fonts used in the original InDesign documents were OpenType CFF fonts with extended character sets which were in fact accessed for ligatures, superscripts, subscripts, etc.
(2)     Previously non-disclosed steps were used in the workflow between the CS5 export and the resultant files I got to see. Using Illustrator as a PDF editor or as trapping software for PDF files in general is a possible / likely cause of the problems. If not Illustrator, then some very defective PDF workflow software for trapping and/or editing was used.
(3)     Although InDesign is not designed as an imposition tool, the fact is that it is used for amalgamation of content such as magazines, journals, etc. where ads and other content as PDF (and other formats) is placed within InDesign pages. This appears to be working correctly and is not the source of the problem.
The OP is dealing with problematic workflow, but not with InDesign problems.
          - Dov

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