Eyedropper to fill fails to "dig" to shape

I think I see what Myron is observing.

On the right hand side, the unfilled larger rectangle is in front of the red rectangle.

My observations using X8 match Myron's:

• If one collects a color with the eyedropper tool, and then tries to drop it on the red rectangle, the fill instead gets applied to the larger unfilled rectangle.
  
  
• A right-click drag and drop followed by selecting  "Copy fill here" from the dialog lets one apply it  to the smaller "behind" rectangle, or to the larger "in front" rectangle, depending on where the drop is performed.

Now, I also tried it using the Attributes eyedropper, with "Fill" checked. I haven't used that tool much, and was surprised to find that it won't let me apply a fill to an unfilled object. On the face of it, at least, that seems to me like a bad way for that tool to behave. In the same situation, the right-click drag and drop approach works just fine.

Doing some more testing today causes me to strike out that last paragraph. The Attributes eyedropper is working the way I would expect it to.