@ZennGlenn - I can't sleep, so I was reading the forum... and I decided to scan your town to see if I could see any of the missing characters on my end (because, character wise, what I see going on in your town isn't necessarily the same as what you see in your town). I scanned it carefully a few times.
I couldn't find any of the missing characters unfortunately. That doesn't mean they aren't there, but I was hoping to see at least one of them because then we could determine if it was some sort of syncing issue maybe.
What I did notice may or may not be the cause of your problem - but this has been known to make the game act funny (and even to make items disappear in towns). You have a lot of your monorail track in the water.
It pains me to suggest this - because I really like your monorail set up, and this may not even work - but I think you might want to try storing your monorail tracks, or at least the ones in water. Resync your game a few times. Then see if any of the missing characters re-appear. This is the only thing I can think of that might help. And it is only a maybe. But I think it could be worth trying. :)
