Constructing Simple Content and Built-in Template Rule

Hello,

I have a question about the relationship between the construction of simple
content and built-in template rules.

If I interprete the XSLT specification right, simple content (e.g. with
value-of) is constructed the same way as the built-in Template Rules work (with
apply-templates).

Given to following XML,

<root>
  <a>a</a>
  <b>b</b>
</root>

a stylesheet with only one root template with the instruction
<xsl:apply-templates select="root"/> does the same as a stylesheet with the
instruction <xsl:value-of select="root"/>, namely: "ab" (neglecting possible
whitespaces).

Is this always correct? Of course, assuming that there are no other templates
which could cause the built-in template rules not to be used.

Thanks,
Peter