Actionscript 2: Trouble overriding setter for MovieClip Properties like _visible

In my previous post, I described how we create classes to extend MovieClip.

Continuing with the ubSquare example, now let's suppose that I want to scale my square whenever it becomes visible.  Well, _visible is a property of the class, just like side was so how about adding some code like:

//at the top with _side
private var __visible:Boolean = true;

//with the side getter and setters
public function get _visible():Boolean{
 trace("in ubSquare get _visible");
 return this.__visible;
}
public function set _visible(newVis:Boolean):Void{
 trace("in ubSquare set _visible");
 this.__visible = newVis;
 this._visible = newVis;
}

This is just like what I did for side, except that I can't just change my private __visible property and expect the movieclip to change, so I add the last line to tell the movieclip to actually change its visibility.

There are two problems with this:

1. If I put a line like:
   this.mySquare_ubS._visible = false;
   in my tester, the set function is not called.
2. If I put a line like
   this._visible = true;
   in my scale method, I get 256 levels of recursion since the set for _visible calls itself.

One way to fix the second problem is to change the last line of the set _visible function from:
this._visible = newVis;
to
setProperty(this, _visible, newVis);

The output becomes:

scale making movieclip visible true
in ubSquare set _visible
in ubSquare get _visible

This, of course, begs three questions:

1. what is the point of writing a setter for _visible if it can be avoided by using a (deprecated) setProperty operation?
2. why is a get _visible call made when I set _visible? The line in the scale method (this._visible = true) calls both the setter and the getter.  I was sure I had a good link that explained why but cannot for the life of me find it now.
3. how do I solve the first problem which was the important one?  I want to be able to notice when anything makes my square visible, not just when some of my own class code does.

I have figured out one way to catch the setting of _visible for a MovieClip, which I will blog about next, but have yet to figure out how to apply it to a Class that extends MovieClip.