@Chris, I can give part of an answer about the text's gradient.
Somehow, the Variant's one got stuck well below the text & shadow.
Easy enough to drag it back into position.

It seems to be a Xara Bug as when you drag it out of the WB, it is properly restored.

The same seems to have affected the Mongolian Dancers as you can drag the Fill controls back in place.
I simply double clicked on the image control to remove the clipping as it was the only image clipped in the Variant.
You have seven clipped ones in Main.
How Xara handles a clip into a variant seems to be the issue.

All very random and not conducive to maintaining profession standards.

Acorn