Visual inheritance problems in Visual Studio

Question

So you've decided to make extensive use of visual inheritance in you application: UserControls, Composite Controls, Inherited forms etc. After coding up your various controls you start using the designer to place the controls on your forms. You're cruising along and for no reason your controls simply disappear. Sometimes all the controls disappear, sometimes only controls that are derived controls disappear. What I describe here is the scenario I have lived with for the last 2 days: where designing a windows form should take a few minutes ends up turning into hours of frustration. Anyone else encountered this?