Fotiman - 12:15 am on Jan 7, 2013 (gmt 0)

Also, all func defs & calls in external files run in ready() functions

That's probably the main problem. Don't put the func defs in ready() calls, otherwise you can't be sure what order those defs will be created in. Instead, put the function definitions outside of the ready statements, and the calls to those functions within the ready.