Hi John,
This is an interesting workaround, but in the end, all it’s doing is passing in the post_id to have_rows(). I’ve accomplished this in a simplified manner using setup_postdata() a few comments back. This method also avoids having to update all of the other templates I’m using for the large number of flexible content layouts included on each site.
I think we can call this one closed for now, but thanks for investigating it with me!