Type made from an Illustrator file's text document took each character
attribute its run doesn't set from the document's base attributes, not
from the character style the run names ([Normal Character Style] or
another of the file's). Where the two differ the type came in wrong: a
file whose base fill is white and whose Normal Character Style is black
came in with its text white, invisible, so the layers differed from the
page wherever the page's own type didn't stand in for it.
A run now takes its own attributes, then its character style's (and the
styles that one is based on, up to 16), then the document's.