Re: Rescuing XSLT from Niche Status

> I would agree, since most of the web applications I've seen have not had a
> strong relation between source and result that has definitely contributed to
> my bias.

Ah that explains a lot!

You really don't think of your input XML Document as a document at all.
But as some kind of data source out of which things may be extracted.

I'd expect the following to be exercise 1 in a beginning XSL course
and it can't be achieved using the methods you recommend (which is
why I see them as limited in the extreme) 



Convert the following to HTML

<para>Once upon a <emphasis>time</emphasis>.</para>

resulting in 

  
<p>Once upon a <em>time</em>.</p>

This is just a couple of templates changing para to p and emphasis to em
and works for any number of paragraphs and emphasised texts.
This is not just a contrived example to break your suggested method
it's (for me) the most typical example of what XSLT is used for.
Converting docbook or xmlspec or TEI might take a few more templates,
but it is just really more of the same, and anyone who understands the
above transform coded with two templates will have a good handle on 
understanding (in principle) what the larger examples like the docbook
transforms are doing.

David

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