I don't know about the exception, but I think you do not have a template
  for the document root. So, you should at least add

  <xsl:template match="/">
      <xsl:apply-templates />
  </xsl:template>

No that is not needed ever as the default template is equivalent to that.
Perhaps you are thinking of the-language-known-as-xsl-in-ie5 which does
not have default templates.

David

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