So yesterday I was building my Description Key file in 2009 and had problems getting my symbols to scale up according to the description key parameter.  Simple solution which I found in the discussion board. I forgot to select what to APPLY that parameter to.  Don’t forget to select the “Apply to X-Y” option within your description keys.

Description Keys - Scale Parameter - Apply to X-Y

I do wish the option was there to select multiple description keys and right click to apply changes to all selected rather than manually going through each one.  They seem to update with each selection much like the layers do now.  I also wish there was a toggle to turn the auto update feature to these dialog boxes on or off.  The autoupdate can make things terrible slow when doing mass edits.