Magnets sometimes don't attract - seems unpredictable

I can't tell what I'm doing wrong in this test rig.  I'm playing with magnets and dynamics and have 2 "sharable" puppets that have been reused in the setup.

3 wand-like draggers, and 2 dragon-like things.

The 3 wands are within a puppet, and the 2 dragons are in another, and both of these puppets are within a scene master puppet... why? so that I can have the dragger behavior at the top level and then can pick any draggable object and move it around.

OK so the kicker is - in the dragons puppet the two dragon's magnets attract to each other, and to the wands.  But in the wands puppet the wand magnets attract to the dragon magnets but not to the wands.

The magnet behavior is just a bit unpredictable... so am I rigging the whole thing wrong? Is there some behvior blocking another?

PS> Side note, I was having a heck of a time with the dynamic chains vibrating when they were being dragged.  found that the top-level dynamic group MUST have a transform tag attached to it or it freaks out.

PPS> Why can't I upload .puppet files?

here's a dropbox link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4qm4xeush8lj66j/MagnetTestingPuppet.puppet?dl=1

any help understanding order of presidence or whatever the issues are, much appreciated.