Well call me stupid, but strangely things seem to work as i’d expected them to now… (i’ve changed nothing)..
Late night, perhaps it was just me… in any case it’s all as it should be..
Consider resolved. 
Thanks for the response… 
I’ll have a fiddle with the documents and see if switching to Mac or Unix format helps. I just assumed i’d run with what i use on WordPress…
What concerns me is why these role lines seem to be required for template files to function correctly, and that in keeping them there invalidates the pages…
I suppose the question now is, does anyone else have the issues i mentioned when editting or creating bbPress themes? … If anyone is to report they do not, then i’m happy to accept that it’s likely my mistake and look back over what i’m doing, and where i’m going wrong…. but i’d like a little feedback beforehand….
Admittedly i’m using a custom theme that i converted from a WordPress theme, however i’m not incapable of managing code, so i’ll happily accept that i may have fudged something unintentionally if that’s really the case.
I’ll let you know if using Unix or Mac format makes a difference….
