Create a group out of some elements, convert it into a symbol and then ungroup the symbol instance. The result will be that you have the elements in the group all standalone instead of getting back your group.

Solution: When ungrouping a symbol instance convert it into a group named by the symbol's (current) label. I experienced that it is more often the case that you want to keep your element compositions grouped but only change some detail on it for specific purposes.

At the moment you have to group things twice and name the outer and inner group the same to get the expected behavior, which is an annoying indirection - especially when things are getting complex and the list of symbols is growing.