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It's not a matter of misbehaving. You haven't seen the forest for the trees. A forest doesn't have the same morphology as the trees which make it up. What is happening, is that the patterns of morphology at the micro and meso scales, when taken as a whole, drive other patterns at the macro scale which may bear little resemblance to those smaller scale patterns. Their combined effect creates the spiral patterns of the galaxies and in turn the megascale patterns also influence the others at the smaller scales. None can be taken in isolation, except if all you're studying is those particular patterns/processes. However, in order to truly understand what is happening at any scale, you must consider the whole system. This applies to any science...let alone astronomy. Actually, it applies to anything we do.
In order to study how the spiral density wave creates and drives the spiral structures in galaxies, you must know how the stars form within them and what other processes/patterns occur within them. And, in order to understand how the stars form and the clouds of dust and gas are related to this process (and others), you must also know how the spiral structures of these galaxies work. It can't be escaped.
The problem with being overly reductionist is that you lose sight of the interrelationships between the apparently disparate pieces of the whole. That is a big problem with science...this over reliance on reductionism and pigeon holing of everything. In many cases, more knowledge can be gained by considering the whole, rather than the parts.
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