Mike you were doing add shapes with "brushes"
with "constant" brush stroke. I was getting the error with all the other stroke shapes.

Change the outline of an object to "normal line" and brush stroke to "blip". Make it the top most object and do add shapes.

(Funny - brushes with special brush strokes works - go figure...)

Anyways, I'm going to let it go now... and e-mail Xara.