One that isn't sprouting in particular(pic 2?) seems to be sprouting black, whithered stems, even tho it had had a huge top and flowers when I cut it - these all have established root systems, planted from seed dec. 9. A pic of their brother plants not topped

what would cause a topped plant not to come back? I noticed leaving a couple big leaves seems to do better

Leaving some leaves when topping/pruning most plants is important - no leaves, no photosynthesis. It is OK to cut large leaves in half.

to put it bluntly, you hacked the plant to death.
plants need light to grow and if there is little foliage to absorb light, then the plant will not be able to produce the energy needed for growth.

the plant may come back, but it's going to be extremely slow. personally, i've never been a fan of topping plants, but if doing it because growing indoors (space, etc) then it's understandable to do.
in the future, don't remove more than half of the plants original size in one shot.

IME if you are going to chop that much at once, a few weeks prior strip the first few sets of bottom leaves and let the buds there put out a few shoots first. This pic was 7 days after topping using the method I just described:

Thanks for the input guys! I topped them because the stalks were all Barren except for a few leaves and all the nutrients wer just pushing the plants to flower I was told topping would force it to push it to grow from the stalk again, greatly reinforce the stalk, and create a bushier healthier plant The more than half of them look like the pics above so I was excited ! Just was wondering about the couple that weren't :)