Disappearing caret when container is scaled

The private vs. protected issue has been one of my pet peeves for a  long time.  I recall recently that I needed to override a method in

a  Flex 3 component and was pleasantly surprised to find that every  property that was referenced within the method was protected instead of  private.

And that's the problem.  Why was I surprised  to find that I could actually override something in a Flex component?   It seems that that should be rule, not the rare exception.  As with brycebarrand, I, too, have spent hours of needless work simply to get around properties that should have been accessible, but were not, namely anything that is private referenced within a method that is not.  Once something private is referenced from within something that is not, that component and any of its subclasses suddenly become code-locked.

The only exception that I can think of are private holder vars within getters and setters.  Since getters and setters can be overridden if they're not private, the holder vars may be private and nothing is hurt, as long as the holders are only referenced by their getters / setters.  Once a private holder var is referenced anywhere else, then the behavior of the getter / setter pair is no longer encapsulated, and all is spaghetti.

The bottom line is that private properties and methods that cannot be accessed and therefore not overridden make Flex components inextensible.  My team has resorted, at times, to copying the entire code from Flex components and creating new ones just to override the private properties, when that's even possible.

What's the goal of using private properties instead of protected ones?  Yes, they have their place, but it is a very, very small place - like using chemo therapy.  Use it only if you absolutely have to and there is no better alternative.

I  had hoped that the issue would be remedied for Flex 4, but I guess  enough people haven't complained about it?