Joel Schmechel,
I have a strong feeling a lot of people are concidering you and me to be absolute morons when it comes to Inventor, but it doesn't work for me either.
I don't have the feature of declaring something "independent," I can only supress. My advice to you is bit back your tears, delete all that hard work, and redo it peice by peice.
-Kenny
I wish I didn't use patterns. Heck, the only reason I WAS is because there doesn't seem to be a simple (copy 5in on the x-axis) or (move 2.5" on the y-axis)