Problem with preceding-sibling, my code, or my tool? R

I have the read the FAQs on axes, yet I still have a problem.... 

For the input... 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<list>
<char/>
<item value="1">one
<sub>subone</sub>
</item>
<item value="2">two
<sub>subtwo</sub>
</item>
<item value="3">three</item>
</list> 

And the XSLT stylesheet.... 
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'>
<xsl:output method='xml'/> 
<xsl:template match="list">
<xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
</xsl:template> 
<xsl:template match="item">
<xsl:if test="name(preceding-sibling::*[1])=name(.)">
Pre:<xsl:value-of select="name(preceding-sibling::*[1])"/>
Me:<xsl:value-of select="name(.)"/>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet> 

Why does the test always fail? If instead I use preceding-sibling::item[1],
the test works fine. I don't get it. 
Help! This is critical. I need to know if the immediate previous (and also
immediate next using 
following-sibling) are the same element type as the context node. 

Martin 
mstreicher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:mstreicher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 

P.S. I am running this under XSL Designer 1.02. 


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