Robert,
one more behavior I am curious about.
if it leave a layer unchecked and publish it as a service and then add the services to a agol webmap and use that webmap in the webappbuilder I can turn the layer on so it is visible but I cannot use the mouse and click on a feature and get a popup. all the layers that are published with the visibility on will show popups.
I have enabled popups in the webmap and configured them.
any ideas why?