I just did it using fields named B and C instead of variables and it also worked fine. I do vaguely recall something similar in the shadows of my memory with field cells not retaining input on a file until I quit Panorama X and reloaded the file again. It then worked properly - but it was a long time ago when it happened.
Everyone seems to be assuming the list in the clipboard is space separated. Is that a safe assumption? The results you describe are exactly what I would expect if they were separated by line feeds.
In Panorama 6, the clipboard automatically converts line feeds to carriage returns, so a replace( that doesn’t actually replace anything, followed by an array( function that uses those carriage returns as separators will work in Panorama 6. In Panorama X, the line feeds will remain line feeds.
By the way, there is a function just for that – lftocr(. Of course there is also a crtolf( function. Just to make this easier, of course you could also do this with the replace( function.