OK, Unity question:
What is the actual mathematical relationship between the scale of a parent object and the local position of a child object? It doesn’t seem to be 1-1; if the scale of the parent increases by 10%, the child object’s local position doesn’t reliably increase 10%. Anybody know what the equation is?
The Law of Game Design 
I would guess that scale in the parent predictably changes the child’s distance from its local origin. Of course all the scale factors up the chain of parents cascade. Just a guess without any evidence or experimentation behind it…
I also think that’s how it works. The trouble arose when scaling crossed paths with the RotateAround function; I expected multiplying the X, Y, and Z positions by the scale to produce a steady rotation with a new orbital radius, but instead I got chaos. 😉 Maybe the problem was elsewhere?