I have a strongly typed custom collection that is filled from an xml
file. This works fine inside my web service, but not when I try to send
it to the client. The proxy class changes the return type to an array
of [my object]. And even though the collection had 3 items in it on the
web service end the array passed to the client is empty. Also one of
[my object]'s properties is another custom collection.

I've found a few forums posts, with people having the same problems but
no solutions. The closest I've found was a vague reference to using the
"SchemaImporterExtensions."

I'm not familiar with this at all. If someone could point in the
direction of a solution or explanation of what the Schema Importer
Extensions is, it would be very helpful.