RE: default namespace in xsl and xpath expressions

> But why doesn't it work when I set the default namespace to the
> document's namespace and try to use Xpath expressions in XSL without
> namespace qualifiers? 

It doesn't work because that's the way the language was defined.

If you're asking, why was it defined that way, then we can only guess at the
history. I think the likely reason is that it makes life very difficult when
you have different default namespaces for the source and the result
document. However, this is the way XQuery has chosen to do it, and only time
will tell whether it makes life easier or harder.

Michael Kay