Ashley,
Right, which is why I couldn't figure out why pinning an object to a sync'd object was creating so much delay. That's why we came up with going the message route.
We tried to simulate 0.5 seconds of latency with ~x4 the normal packet loss and the game was playable for each player, but the other player was (obviously) teleporting all over the place. For our game in particular, I think it's more important that your character is completely playable instead of relying on the host. I know we're losing a lot of features from the plugin, but maybe it would be worth doing a 5th tutorial on advanced multiplayer techniques (syncing animations, pinned sprites, enemies with health, etc.)