>   And with the support for namespace axis of course.  But I 
> can't see how we could have a parentless namespace node.  Is 
> it really possible?

I showed an example earlier in the thread:

<xsl:variable name="ns" as="node()">
  <xsl:namespace name="prefix">uri</xsl:namespace>
</xsl:variable>

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/