Custom Plugin dependencies.groovy is ignored

Question

The Problem: I've built a custom grails plugin, defined my dependencies on other plugins via BuildConfig.groovy and packaged my plugin into a zip file. I then added the zip to my local maven repository and all is well. The file dependencies.groovy within the zip has my dependent plugin entries as it should. Example:

grails.project.dependency.resolution = {
   inherits 'global'
   log 'warn'
   repositories {
      grailsCentral()
   }
   dependencies {
      // runtime 'mysql:mysql-connector-java:5.1.5'
   }
   plugins {
      build(':release:2.0.4', ':rest-client-builder:1.0.2') {
         export = false
      }
      compile ":rest:0.7"      // #1 plugin I'm dependent upon
      compile ":fields:1.3"    // #2 plugin I'm dependent upon
   }
}

When I add the plugin as a compile dependency within another project (within eclipse, via the BuildConfig.groovy file), and refresh my grails dependencies, the plugin is installed but the plugins my plugin is dependent on are not installed (dependencies.groovy is ignored).

I've seen this problem posted over and over and no one provides a real solution. Has anyone found a fix for this problem?