Default Conditional Action Fails, Folder Stays at Prior (System) Stage

This is in v 9.0.2. A system stage is followed by a pair of conditional actions, the first (priority) one with a condition and the second as default. There is no script or code on any of these three objects (and nothing in the "Extra" section). I also tried changing the "Only start action if" of the default condition to true (or true==true).

To facilitate testing and debugging, I have a user action (priority 3) that goes from the system stage back to the stage before the system stage. That way, the folders don't get stuck (I recycle them thru the loop manually until they satisfy the first condition), but they consitently refuse to take the default conditional action!

I have deleted and recreated the default action. The first conditional action does work.