I don't think you read what I said, I said they did breed. The only reason none of the fry made it was because I had no intention of raising them seperatly in another tank and the serpae tetras in the community were fast enough to eat the fry, they'd pretty much act as a pack of wolves when going for the fry, I figured on survival of the fittest.
And yes, I think I know what I am seeing in my own tank, my male is in no way aggressive towards the female, I have apisto viejita and if anything the female is more aggressive. Even before they were breeding there was no aggression from him and the only aggression from the female was keeping him and other fish away from her pit. When they bred the only thing I witnessed was the female pretty much shoving him (he was willing but she wanted it done right then! not in 15 seconds) so unless he did that in the confnes of her pit/cave, there was no tail-wagging.
And I have been talking with a ram breeder (she used to be specifically rams) and she recomends nothing smaller than a 15 gallon for breeding rams because she has observed agression from he male towards he female when she either isn't ready for breeding and even when they are ready for breeding she'll have a male that seems to just beat the female when in too small of a tank so she moved up to 20 gallons for breeding and is using her 10s for raising fry. Of course, now she breeds borelli because after so long GBR and BR got repetetive.
I have to say, each fish is different. Some fish are aggressive, some of that same species aren't, maybe the local supply just isn't too good in the way of aggression for GBR.
However, I have to ask, what books do you have? I could only find 1 book that had a profile on A. viejita and that was an outdated library book (my LFS has a really great selection on books on plants and SW but barely any on freshwater fish) that was vague on everything, it told me they needed 5.0-6.0 ph (mine are spawning in 7.2), that they don't breed for a year (I've had mine for 3 months now and they were tiny things when I got them) and other useless information.