Sorry, I don't get it, you say: "then myThing draws but the material is whatever is defined within Thing.as (such as WhiteShadingBitmapMaterial)"
but wasn't WhiteShadingBitmapMaterial what you where trying to assign? And I have a feeling that the second problem is not related. To verify this I would place a basic primitive next to your Thing object with a phong material and see if it works properly. Perhaps its something to do with how you are using your lights. If it does work properly, then I'm probably wrong.
