I understand that the objects that trickle down to my child primary site are locked, but is there any way I can give the admins responsible for the child primary site the ability to at least look at the properties for objects so they can use them as templates for their own?

Which properties are you referring too? I know they cannot see the properties of the membership queries (through the console). But they can see the SQL/WQL for these queries via the Collection_Rules_SQL table in the database (even on the child site).For everything else, they should be able to at least see it (although most of the other stuff is not as important).Scott Gill SCCM Consultant