Groups vs Parenting

So I have a heirarchy of groups set up like a bone-chain:  group10 is inserted into group9, group9 is inserted into group8, group8 is inserted into group7, etc. 

The result is that if group1 rotates, everything up the chain rotates. If group 5 rotates, the upper half rotates, etc.  Like a bone chain. 

That’s the parenting.

But the display images in each group also inherit a display order: group1 is on top, group10 on

the bottom. Generally that’s fine. 

But what there’s a situation where I want one display object “A” inside group10 to be on the bottom

of the overall display order, and another “B” to be on the very top of the overall display order- yet still be a child of group9?

The only way can think of (and have tried) is to have a runtime listener that constantly updates the position and rotation of “B” to match that of group10. This isn’t ideal: I’m moving the groups with transitions, and detecting some delay in the update of “B”. 

Anyone have other ideas?

I’ve always found it weird to have parenting tied to display order. Especially after working with 3d applications for years, not to mention 2D After Effects where you can just parent things to nulls (just like maya or max) without affecting display order.  Anyone else wish they were decoupled? 

On the other hand, I’m likely missing something really obvious.