From the beginning I have been using TS Custom Widgets v2.0 WP Plugin and I have had no problems with the widgets at all. I can put whatever wherever, maybe it will help you too. Good luck! sounds like a really strange and frustrating problem.
I don’t understand what you mean by jumping around
Can you post a link?
The problem is defined by widgets going without user input and chaotically from one template let me say contacts-template.php to gallery-template.php without user input, when gallery and contacts are next to each other vertically in the widgets pick-and-drop area inside WP Admin.
how do you define which widget is in which template?
page templates?
widget logic?
conditional if statements?
it might be that the template is not clearly defined when ‘whatever’ decides which widget to use.
have you considered to use wp_reset_query();
before the widget selection?