I think this is a config issue related to keeping store in an npm-linked folder.
It also works properly with a linked package if I build the minimized js (npm run build). Is there a config setting I'm missing?
The problem turned out to be that the linked packages had its own node_modules folder. I think that may have resulted in webpack creating 2 instances of Vue and attaching the linked package to the 2nd instance.
Deleting the depended upon package's node modules and letting webpack / vue-cli run at the root level resolved my problem.