Illustrator :: Adjust Image Placed In A Shape?

In AICS6 I have a compound path made of two half-circle looking shapes. They have to be separate because they are puzzle pieces. Inside of this I am placing an AI illustration that is a group of over 100 shapes. The problem is this: Once inside the compound path it is impossible to adjust the position of either the placed image or the path container. Let's say I want to move the path around the image. If I use the direct seletion tool it will only select part of the path. This happens even if I group the two parts of the path. It then wants to deform the half-circles rather than move them. If I select both halves of the compound path and try moving it with the keyboard arrows nothing moves.

If I select both with the white arrow and then switch to the black arrow the result is the same. OK, dead end. The other option is to move the image and keep the path container stationary. When I select the image with the direct seletion tool, however, it only selects one of the hundreds of vector shapes making up the image. Even if they are grouped, it will only pick the one part. This is really amazing because it works so easily in InDesign, but you can't make the kind of picture boxes in ID that I need nor the type of clipping paths I want in Photoshop. It is best done in AI, but as is often the case there is a critical feature missing that is found in another part of the so-called "suite" to do something that shoud be simple. I'm hoping that's just it: that I'm missing something really simple. don't tell me to raster the vector image. I know that would work, but that is not a solution. That is a concession. If that is the only way, however, I'll do it.