hard xsl problem

I would be grateful for a solution to the following xsl problem.

Example input:
==============
<Paragraph> On October 30, clad in scarlet and ermine, Charles made
his entry into the papal palace (see <i>especially<i> <cite>30</cite>,
as well as <cite>20</cite>). He presented the Pope with a blue velvet
cape embroidered in pearls (<cite>234</cite>; <cite>12345</cite>) in a
design of angels (as well as a fleur-de-lys and stars). With no
footing except in French support, Clement's papacy would have vanished
in smoke.</Paragraph>

Example output:
==============
<Paragraph> On October 30, clad in scarlet and ermine, Charles made
his entry into the papal palace. He presented the Pope with a blue
velvet cope embroidered in pearls in a design of angels (as well as a
fleur-de-lys and stars). With no footing except in French support,
Clement's papacy would have vanished in smoke.</Paragraph>

Problem in words:
==============
The <cite> tags are always enclosed in parenthesis. As the result of a
transform (when a parameter passed into the xsl sheet is 'true') (a)
these parens, (b) their xml content, and (c) the space preceding the
open paren must be suppressed. Alternatively, (a)-(c) can be enclosed
in a tag. Parens that do not contain <cite> tags are to be left as is.
All of this is always inside a <Paragraph> tag.

How to do this is the problem.

I don't see how to do this even with a plugin, because it is unclear
to me how a plugin can be used to generate tags. It would of course be
more elegant to do this without a plugin.

MTIA,
/r:b: