Hi Clinton Smyth,
An example showing the first issue will greatly help us pinpoint the cause. Otherwise it is unclear why this is happening on your side. In this sense, could you open a support ticket and send us a reproducible sample there?
Regarding your final question, using the client-side Load event to pre-populate some Items in the control is a completely valid approach. Does it fit in your requirement?
Sincerely yours,
Simon
the Telerik team
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