IMPORTANT UPDATE
having heard nothing useful from support for about a week (yes that is a whine about the support we get or don't get from PG) today I noticed:

** Opt/Return to Factory Settings **

and that was the fix! now when I change volumes and instruments and save the file, the re-opened file has saved the settings
YAWHOO

now maybe pushes will work again but one thing at a time

(special thx to Noel96 - no worries Mate! - for the response - even tho his ideas were not a fix for my particular problem I learned a heck of a lot about RealDrums vs MIDI!!)