Hi, glad to let you know the issue was resolved by doing a double reset :
– site reset
followed by -wpml reset through support, advanced “discard all translation info”
and then start over. So somewhere in the process we’ve managed to mess up something in the database that did not resolve afterwards or left traces, unless by a full restart.
Thank you for your patient support and above all: still loving your theme, have now planned to reuse it for 2 of my customers!
— cheers! Kurt