VBA ActiveSheet.Cells behaving unexpectedly - excel

Question

I'm working on a VBA word script that reads in some names and relevant info from an excel sheet, performs some computations to organize them correctly, and then pastes them into the word doc. This went well until I decided to make a function that would move a cell with the value "Anonymous" to the top of a range. For some reason, this isn't happening, and it appears to be because the .Cells method isn't always referring to the cell it was called on.
As the script itself is fairly long, I won't post the entire thing here. However, the relevant parts are a For loop in the main sub which deals with cells with the value "Anonymous"
For curCol = 7 To 15
lastRow = appXL.Cells(appXL.Rows.Count, curCol).End(xlUp).Row
For curRow = 1 To lastRow
Dim curCell As excel.Range
Set curCell = appXL.Cells(curRow, curCol)
Dim anonCount As Integer
anonCount = 0
If curCell.Value = "Anonymous" Or curCell.Value = "Anonymous*" Then
If anonCount < 1 Then
anonCount = anonCount + 1
MoveAnon (curRow), (curCol), (lastRow)
Else
anonCount = anonCount + 1
curCell.Value = curCell.Value + " (" + CStr(anonCount) + ")"
MoveAnon (curRow), (curCol), (lastRow)
End If
End If
Next curRow
Next curCol
You'll notice that within this loop is a call to a subroutine "MoveAnon" which is
Sub MoveAnon(currentRow As Integer, currentCol As Integer, thelastRow As Integer)
Dim text As String
Debug.Print ("Using Row: " + CStr(currentRow) + ", Column: " + CStr(currentCol) + ", Last Row: " + CStr(thelastRow))
text = excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Cells(currentRow, currentCol)
Debug.Print ("Hit On: " & excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Cells(currentRow, currentCol))
If currentRow > 1 Then
excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Range(excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Cells(1, currentCol).Address, excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Cells(currentRow - 1, currentCol).Address).Cut excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Range(excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Cells(2, currentCol).Address)
excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Cells(1, currentCol).Value = text
End If
End Sub
Through testing and with Deubg.Print, I've noticed that the line Debug.Print ("Hit On: " & excel.Application.ActiveSheet.Cells(currentRow, currentCol)) refers to all manner of different cells then the one on which it was called. For example, whenever I use Cells(6, 15), I get a value from a cell that is actually on row 42, column 15. The difference between the cell its called on and the cell it returns is not always the same (I've seen -7, +36, and 0), but it is always in the correct column.
Does anyone have any idea as to what my cause this behavior to arise? Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

It's much faster to read the whole range into an array, then populate another array of the same size with the "Anonymous*" at the top, and replace the range values using the second array.
Eg.
Sub Tester()
Dim curCol As Long, ws As Worksheet
Set ws = ActiveSheet
For curCol = 7 To 15
MoveAnon ws.Range(ws.Cells(1, curCol), _
ws.Cells(ws.Rows.Count, curCol).End(xlUp))
Next curCol
End Sub
'Given a (single-column) range, move all values like "Anonymous*"
' to the top of the range
Sub MoveAnon(rng As Range)
Const TXT As String = "Anonymous*"
Dim v, i As Long, num As Long
Dim arrIn, arrOut, nA As Long, nX As Long
num = Application.CountIf(rng, TXT) 'how many to float up
If num = 0 Then Exit Sub 'nothing to do here?
arrIn = rng.Value 'read to array
ReDim arrOut(1 To UBound(arrIn, 1), 1 To UBound(arrIn, 2)) 'size output array
For i = 1 To UBound(arrIn, 1) 'loop the input array
v = arrIn(i, 1)
If v Like TXT Then
nA = nA + 1
arrOut(nA, 1) = v '"Anonymous*" goes at the top
Else
nX = nX + 1
arrOut(num + nX, 1) = v 'everything else goes below
End If
Next i
rng.Value = arrOut 'replace using the shuffled array
End Sub