i have no idea how long this has been going on, but i just realized that the Shop Text/Description does not show up in any shops. i double-checked, and with scode or no, nothing from the Shop Text/Description (under the Edit Shop tab) shows up when viewing said shop. not for any of my shops or anyone elses.

Do you have "Show Layouts in User Shops" enabled here? http://subeta.net/preferences.php?act=prefs

facepalm. i had it disabled. i thought that only applied to coded layouts. now i know. thank you :)