Two suggestions that you probably already know, if they have anything helpful at all, sorry if not!
To set off events in your component, declare in the private section:
TNotifyEvent FOnMyEvent;
Then declare in the __published section under public as such:
public:
__published:
__property TNotifyEvent OnMyEvent = {read=FOnMyEvent, write=FOnMyEvent};
Now this will show up in the Events tab in the object inspector.
Second suggestion to debug components at runtime.
Click Run->Parameters menu. Browse for the location to BCB.exe for the host application. Click the Load Button. Now, a new BCB process is started, hit F9 to continue loading all the way until you have a new blank form. Open your Component code, breakpoint at the beginning or wherever you suspect a problem. Now click the component on the tab up above and drop it on the form. You should get a break.
Hope that helps,
Chris