Ignoring Attribute Configuration

[zachrouseFE]

I have an issue with my setup and I am looking for any hints to help track it down.

GeoServer version: v2.15.1* (kinda. We run the redis-based catalog geoserver https://github.com/planetlabs/stratus)
elasticgeo version: v2.15.1-RC1
Elasticsearch version: v5.6.0

When I configure the elasticsearch fields for my layer to limit the properties, I see the expected attributes at the bottom of:
geoserver/rest/workspaces/myworkspace/datastores/mystore/featuretypes/mylayer.json

WFS requests are always returning the full list of properties, ignoring custom names, and skipping
any useShortName.

I often get a creation failure when trying to save the layer in the GUI but hitting save again gets past that. I suspect that the nodes that are responding to the WFS request are somehow finding a different version of the layer configuration. Does that theory hold any water or maybe are there other things that could cause the attribute configuration?

If I use my local geoserver (2.14.2 and elasticgeo:2.14.3) everything works as expected, so it is totally a "me problem".