Thanks Wes.

You're right, one option that works fairy well is adding a Transient Boolean to the ChildController.  In the getItems method we can reload the items if this boolean is set to true.  If I add a default attribute to the component file and set this boolean on the controller we can force the controller to reload the items during rendering.  Because I believe we are guaranteed that the attributes / assignTo for a component get setup before the rendering of the page occur, we can use this flag to effectively notify the controller that the child-component is starting to render and we should re-query or regenerate the list.(I can easily modify the example below to have these changes if I'm not being clear)

I'm providing a more complete example that illustrates my challenges so that others can basically copy and paste into the appropriate controllers and components and see my problem.

public with sharing class ParentController {
	public static String ContactFirstNamePrefix = 'Parent-Child Demo';
	
	public ParentController(){
		this.iCount = 0;
	}

	public Integer iCount {get; set;}
	
	public PageReference createContact(){
		// In theory I want to be able to execute code here that is guranteed to be executed before getDisplayedList
		this.iCount++;
		Contact c = new Contact();
		c.FirstName = ParentController.ContactFirstNamePrefix + ' - ' + String.valueOf(this.iCount);
		c.LastName  = ParentController.ContactFirstNamePrefix + ' Last Name';
		insert c;
		
		return null;
	}
}

<apex:page controller="ParentController">
	<apex:form >
		<div>
		<apex:commandLink value="createContact" rerender="childWrapper" action="{!createContact}" status="inprogress"/>
		<apex:actionStatus id="inprogress">
			<apex:facet name="start">
				<b>Creating ....</b>
			</apex:facet>
		</apex:actionStatus>
		</div>
	</apex:form>
		
		<apex:outputPanel id="childWrapper">
			num-contacts created : {!iCount}
			<c:ChildComponent >
			</c:ChildComponent>
		</apex:outputPanel>
</apex:page>

public with sharing class ChildController {

	private Transient List<Contact> t_theList;
	
	public Transient ID ContactId { get; set; }
	
	public ChildController(){
	}
	
	// I want to be able to gurantee getDisplayedList() only gets executed during the rendering of the Component and not during "Postback" validation
	public List<Contact> getDisplayedList(){
		if(this.t_theList == null){
			// Lazy-Load the list of contacts
			this.t_theList = [SELECT Id, Name FROM Contact WHERE FirstName like :ParentController.ContactFirstNamePrefix + '%' ORDER BY CreatedDate DESC ];
		}
		return this.t_theList;
	}

	public Transient Integer t_itemCount { get; private set; }
	// This method does not get called during the 2nd Stage of the Ajax Post back method (different from the above getDisplayedList method) 
	public Integer getDisplayedItemCount(){
		if(this.t_itemCount == null){
			// Lazy-Load the list of contacts
			this.t_itemCount = [SELECT COUNT() FROM Contact WHERE FirstName like :ParentController.ContactFirstNamePrefix + '%'];
		}
		return this.t_itemCount;
	}

	public PageReference deleteClickedContact(){
		system.debug(this.ContactId);
		if(this.ContactId != null){
			Contact [] c = [SELECT id from Contact where Id =:this.ContactId];
			system.debug(c);
			if(c.size() > 0){
				delete c.get(0);
			}
		}
		system.debug(this.t_theList);
		// In order for the displayed list to refresh we must explicitly set the transient list to NULL 
		// so that when refreshing the child component, the list gets refreshed
		// this.t_theList = null;
		return null;
	}
}

<apex:component controller="ChildController" allowDML="true">

	<apex:outputPanel id="ListWrapper">
		<apex:actionStatus id="delete-status">
			<apex:facet name="start">
			deleting ...
			</apex:facet>					
		</apex:actionStatus>
		
		<div>
			<p>
			Number of Contacts (DisplayedItemCount) : {!DisplayedItemCount}
			</p>
			vs
			<p>
			List Size (DisplayedList.size):  {!DisplayedList.size}
			</p>
		</div>
		
		<apex:form id="innerForm">
		<apex:repeat value="{!DisplayedList}" var="oContact">
			<div>{!oContact.Id} | {!oContact.Name} (
				<apex:commandLink value="delete" action="{!deleteClickedContact}" rerender="ListWrapper" status="delete-status">
					<apex:param name="ContactId" value="{!oContact.Id}" assignTo="{!ContactId}" />
				</apex:commandLink>
				)
			</div>
		</apex:repeat>
		</apex:form>
	</apex:outputPanel>

</apex:component>

This example highlights the following oddities:

1. The Child Components getters: getDisplayedList and getDisplayedItemCount are called at different frequencies. The getDisplayedList method gets called both before the Action of the PostMethod and during rendering of the ChildComponent.  The getDisplayedItemCount only gets called during the rendering of the child component. I know this because the getDisplayedItemCount accurately shows the correct number of expected items while the getDisplayedList is always shows the previous list of Contacts (1 less after a create and 1 more after a delete)

I'd love to see a "Salesforce Design Pattern" Cookbook be released that discusses how to appropriate handle parent-child components, especially involving rerendering these components and message-passing between Child & Parent controllers.

Can anyone shed more light on the above example and provide feedback on how I'm handling child-parent component re-rendering?

Does anyone know why some getters (getDisplayedList) are called during the PostBack execution but others (getDisplayedItemCount ) are only called during rendering?