dropping sysadmin causes attribute problems

From matt:

IDK if this is a long standing local issue for the (environment that I inherited) but I dropped my membership in sysadmingroup to test the folder permission in 2.6.6  and testing it not going well at all.
I could not view any folders due to this error:
 Error: Subject Subject id: NNNN...NNN, sourceId: purdue cannot read attributeDef etc:objectTypes:grouperObjectTypeDef, Problem calling method viewStem on edu.internet2.middleware.grouper.grouperUi.serviceLogic.UiV2Stem
etc:objectTypes:grouperObjectTypeDef has no privileges on it at all.
Should it be automatically "EveryEntity"? or does that need to be manually added to the AttrDef?
When I add EveryEntity to that attrDef then I see:
Error: Subject Subject id: NNNN...NNN, sourceId: purdue cannot stemAdmin/stemAttrRead in stem , Problem calling method viewStem on edu.internet2.middleware.grouper.grouperUi.serviceLogic.UiV2Stem
etc:grouperObjectTypeValueDef has no privileges on it at all.
Should it be automatically "EveryEntity"? or does that need to be manually added to the AttrDef?
When I add EveryEntity to etc:grouperObjectTypeValueDef  then I see:
I re-add sysadmingroup to my user ( I have admin on the group so I can "Join" the group from the "My groups" page.
When I try to set any folder privileges I get this error:
 Error: unexpected condition, Problem calling method addMemberSubmit on edu.internet2.middleware.grouper.grouperUi.serviceLogic.UiV2Stem