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Thank you Paul and dv8_fx!

Sam, thanks for your responses!  Progress is being made, I think. 

With the original method of transform pieces first, then convert whole group to one smart object, no changes would carry between any of the groups.  Applying puppet warp would not propagate.  Adding further changes like the red baton would also not propagate.

However,

If the group is first converted to the smart object and then duplicated, changes like the red baton would propagate.  Puppet warp to the whole group would not.  A problem with this is that transformations like the rotation to create the leg movement also gets propagated, whereas before it would not.  So now the question is how to deal with that.....lol

Thanks again, and finally I'd like to apologize if this question doesn't belong here.