Using a VI explicity and as a subpanel in the same code?

Question

I realize this message is somewhat long, so skip to the bold portion if you are faint of heart.
I am attempting to use a Subpanel (for the first time) to simplify
maintenance and compiling of my application.  A subpanel should
allow me to only have to build one executable that behaves in different
ways, rather than building separate executables which is what I have
done in the past.  This is time consuming and
prone to error, so I was really hoping subpanels would be the easy
answer.  I have read nearly all posts pertaining to subpanels, but
I still can't get my head completely around the concept.
I have a VI that I want to display/run normally when the application is
configured in non-emulation mode (via config file), but I want to
display the same VI as a subpanel of another "wrapper" VI if the
application is configured in emulation mode.  The "wrapper" VI
simply contains boolean buttons that simulate physical buttons on a
real device.  The VI will not be used in both ways at the same
time, just whichever mode it is configured for.
My attempt at this has been to create a case structure in which the
FALSE case calls the SubVI directly (placed statically on the block
diagram), and the TRUE case calls a different VI (the wrapper) that has
a subpanel containing the SubVI.  It doesn't seem to be a problem
getting the SubVI to display in the subpanel, but the RunVI invoke
method on SubVI fails with "Error 1000: The VI is not in a state
compatible with this operation."  I suspect this is due to the
fact that the VI is loaded in memory already (from the static
placement) somehow.  But as long as the VI isn't running before I
invoke the RunVI method (which it won't be), why won't it work?
What is the best way to accomplish what I need?  I know there are
a few things I can try (such as making it re-entrant or making all
calls to SubVI dynamic), but they all seem to have their own downfalls.
Thank you in advance,
Phish ><>

Answer 1

I agree that reentrancy isn't the best answer.  And in my case, it
isn't an answer at all since keypresses aren't dealt with.
In my WrapperVI, I was passing the SubVI name as a string to the Open
VI Reference.  Since, at the time, I had the SubVI statically
placed in the MainVI, it was loaded into memory already.
So I guess you are right:  I will not be able to do it that way
and I'll need to open the reference with a path at both points in code
(where I call the SubVI directly, and where I call it in the
WrapperVI).  That is where the "unclean" code is going to come
in.  I'll have to use two comepletely different, non-correlating
paths depending on whether I'm running the code in the development
system or in the run-time engine.  I do have a VI that I use to
properly determine the path to the top-level VI whether it be in an
LLB/EXE or not, but that won't keep me from having to use some
hard-coded paths.  I hate hard-coded paths.
I'll try it out and experiment some.  Thank you for your help so far.