Anybody successful with NSProxy of UIView (e.g., UILabel?)

I am experimenting in adding functionality to my UIViews (configuring CALayers according to state) by setting up a NSProxy subclass to stand in for any UIView I choose. Here's what I've tried:

In my NSProxy subclass, I have the following code:

#pragma mark Initialization / Dealloc

- (id)initWithView:(UIView *)view
{
    delegate = view;
    [delegate retain];

    return self;
}

- (void)dealloc
{
    [delegate release];
    [super dealloc];
}


#pragma mark Proxy Methods

- (void)forwardInvocation:(NSInvocation *)anInvocation
{
    [anInvocation setTarget:delegate];
    [anInvocation invoke];
    return;
}

- (NSMethodSignature *)methodSignatureForSelector:(SEL)aSelector
{
    return [delegate methodSignatureForSelector:aSelector];
}

- (BOOL)respondsToSelector:(SEL)aSelector 
{
    BOOL rv = NO;
    
    if ([delegate respondsToSelector:aSelector]) { rv = YES; }
    
    return rv;
}
 

And, using my NSProxy subclass this way:

UILabel *label = [[HFMultiStateProxy alloc] initWithView:[[[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:cellFrame] autorelease]];
label.text = text;
label.font = font;
label.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
label.opaque = NO;

[self addSubview:label];

Seems to work until I hit the addSubview: line.

Turning message tracing on ( instrumentObjcMessageSends(YES); ) shows the forwarding for each of the previous messages working until deep inside of the addSubview:, where this series of method calls show up in the log (the first message shown here was invoked via the proxy):

- UILabel UIView _makeSubtreePerformSelector:withObject:
- UILabel UIView _makeSubtreePerformSelector:withObject:withObject:copySublayers:
- CALayer CALayer sublayers
- NSMethodSignature NSMethodSignature methodReturnType
- NSMethodSignature NSMethodSignature _argInfo:
- NSMethodSignature NSMethodSignature _frameDescriptor
+ UILabel NSObject reso