PaddyD

Removing the text boxes entirely and replacing them seems to have worked. Still - odd that this happens. At one point when I deleted some, but not all of the text in the first text box, the text from the SECOND text box started flowing back into it (as you would expect) - but it was 50 PT! I've seen that before too - so there is definitely a bug of some sort lurking in the shadows, but it's hard to duplicate it. It's quite bizarre - I certainly haven't dragged any of the text boxes by that other handle either, nor have I ever used 2.9 or 50 pt text in this document.
Tis a mystery...

I have seen this a couple of times before, but it just happened again and since there was no resolution when it was mentioned previously in the forums, I am bringing it up again.
There is a nice little video accompanying the first report, so I won't duplicate it here. Basically, what's happening is that text that is flowed from one text box to the next is changing size - radically. Mine goes from 12pt down to 2.9pt!
Unlike the original poster in the previous thread, I AM able to select the teeny-tiny text in the second box and apply my body style to it, but it shouldn't have changed size when flowed from one text box to the next in the first place. This is text I'm copying into a document to replace some other text. I'm pasting with no format - and making sure that the body text style is selected. 
This may be hard to duplicate, as I just tried it again on the next text area in the document and didn't see the oddball behaviour. I'm not sure what triggers it. As it does appear that I can fix it, it's not the end of the world - but it sure is weird.

Ah - good idea. Hadn't thought of that! I was on a bit of a deadline, so ended up just using InDesign again, but going forward, I could definitely do that. But here's hoping they fix it so we don't have to get creative about workarounds.  Out of curiosity - I only noticed this bug with the latest version - was it there before? I never did attempt a complete document with it until now though...so not sure what I did and didn't try with older versions.

Same problems here - completely inconsistent and unreliable results with text wrap. I posted about it in an existing thread here:
 
It's definitely a bug - and a big one, that makes it pretty much impossible to use afpub right now for things like newsletters. I *know* we're not supposed to use beta software for "real" things but  most of us don't have time to beta-test in spare time on pretend things.  I was hoping to transition from ID for a couple of newsletters I do on a regular basis, but can't quite do it until this issue is fixed. I need my hair.
 

Yes - PLEASE implement something like the OP is suggesting. Text columns are NOT what I need - I need LAYOUT columns - in the background. Pretty please, with brown sugar on it. A grid system is no substitute for the ease with which one can do this in InDesign, and it's a really basic need (heck...Quark had it back in the dark ages...).

+1    i had the same issues... 
so such a grid    and also guides snapping to text columns...
 

Yes - PLEASE implement something like the OP is suggesting. Text columns are NOT what I need - I need LAYOUT columns - in the background. Pretty please, with brown sugar on it. A grid system is no substitute for the ease with which one can do this in InDesign, and it's a really basic need (heck...Quark had it back in the dark ages...).