To all, one thing I discovered as part of my problem is that I didn't have the variable, equal size, and the value being assigned 'tight' on the line.
In other words, some of the assignments did not persist if they looked like this:
a = "cow" (a space on either side of the equal sign)
...but DO persist if they look like this:
a="cow" (no spaces)
Life got better after I removed the spaces. I hope this helps someone out there... it was driving me crazy.
...Lance
It should not matter whether spaces are included or not, what does matter is was the assign done using Javascript (the javascript button on the assign node), this will make the assign non-persistant. You can ensure it is stored after your User Actions with a simple assign of the variable to itself using the Assign without javascript. after the javascript within the same assign node.