@grojguy said:

Ah yes, OK, that would make sense, i.e. class inheretance. But, from your comment I was anticipating seeing "layer=" in the instance methods list returned by that nifty command...
So, why is "layer=" it not in the list?

Because.. you see the warning for the "show inherited" argument is default false for your version of Ruby, but will (actually was,) changed to true as a default, in all Ruby versions 1.8.1 and higher.

IF you are still using Sketchup 7.x, then the Ruby DLL distro'd is v1.8.0-initial_release (ie: patch_level p0)

You can backup the current "Deceased 1.8.0" dll, msvcrt-ruby18.dll by renaming it: msvcrt-ruby180_p0.dll
then replace it with your choice of a newer version from: Ruby Interpreter DLLs (Win32) (you will need to make a copy of the version you want Sketchup to load named: msvcrt-ruby18.dll.)
.