Yeah, don't know why the Pulse notifications (and any notifications sometimes) intermittently work.

I ended up resetting my watch. But, again, it seemed to stop working. For whatever reason, restarting the watch, opening the Pulse app got things connected and working again.

But, again, thank you Jog for the suggestion and pointing out Pulse app. I really like that it's able to do the notifications but not be the default messaging app on the phone. Just the workaround needed...

But yeah, I'm having a stubborn difficult time with the new OS 2.1. Compared to 2.0, 2.0 seems so seamless in comparison. And I lost capabilities like speakerphone. I was (or am) considering just keeping it on 2.0 for now because of all of its issues. But I imagine it will constantly alert about the update and be a constant pestering.