If I thought that, then that would indeed be silly, which of course I don't ;p
I also didin't mention anything about wanting the variables to be shared, I don't. I want only the relevent mode's member function to have access to it, no other function, and no other instance. Every instance is responsible for it's own LED & various modes, and nothing else.
The normal meaning of static operates like a private variable store per function. It's static, persistent, and only accessible to that function. That same functionality is what I hoped for in the classes too. If I wanted it shared, I'd have specifically linked pointers to data stores between them, but it seems the language seems to do that for you, with no option of choosing the interpretation.
Anyway, seems I need to bite the bullet and rewrite. Thanks anyway. 