"Additional Options" vertical tab checkbox values (i.e. status, promoted) don't persist when more than one DD widget is used

I checked the values of the submitted $form_state using hook_node_submit() and found that many $form_state['input'] values were NULL when two Drag & Drop widgets were used in the same form, namely status, promoted and a few others. Only when not more than one ER field was set to use Drag & Drop widget would it populate those values. This explains why the node is set to unpublished.. the status, promoted and other values are wiped when multiple D&D widgets are used.

Referring to an issue with a separate module (though still form related) https://www.drupal.org/node/1848122 is an issue with Multistep Nodeform with the title "Some form field values don't persist across steps". #5 one of the maintainers bullet points the known bugs they are working on fixing, one of them being "some checkboxes in vertical tabs "Additional information" [values don't persist]"

On a hunch, I thought maybe if I can get those "Additional Options" i.e. promoted, status, etc checkboxes out of the vertical tabs, maybe it would make a difference with this issue. I found this sandbox project on github takes all of those vertical tabs and places them into fieldsets. https://gist.github.com/joshuapowell/1680568

This solves the problem. I believe at this point the bug in Entity Reference Drag & Drop lies in how the form is being built when multiple ER D&D widgets are used. I'll post what I find, after comparing dpm a bit further up the line. For reference: https://www.drupal.org/node/165104

Yikes, such an easy solution. If only I had taken a look at the dom from the start haha. Even worth a patch?

Line 48: entityreference_dragdrop.module

-  $html_3 = '</div></div>';
+  $html_3 = '</div>';