While your answer has the virtue of being obvious, it is not helpful. Can you do any better? You are basically saying that the Infragistics grid doesn't handle nulls fully the way it should. I can back that up with the fact I have tried this same exercise with other grids, and they work fine.
As a possible work-around, I am going to explore having the grid display all zero values as blank. If you have anything to suggest on how to best make that work, that will be appreciated. While it isn't a very satisfying answer, I have to get the job done, and it is too late to switch off the Infragistics grids right now.