custom phrases don't show in notify e-mail

[JPnyc]

We've created a couple of custom global phrases, and tested in versions 3.0 .x, 3.5 .x and 3.6.8. The custom phrases show up fine in all three versions, all with the same exception, new post notification e-mails. No matter what the phrases will not show up in the notify e-mail. We've tried looking at the code and we don't see these particular e-mails being handled any differently from any others.

In addition, if we create a variable within vBulletin (using an include statement in the plug-in system) it will also show up fine in every single e-mail except notify. We figure this has to be a scope issue, since hardcoded text will show up fine in notify e-mails, but no kind of variable will. Can anyone verify for me that the notify e-mail is somehow handled differently and does not have access to either custom phrase variables or variables created within the plug-in system? Thank you