op> <xsl:param name="i">1</xsl:param>

me> <xsl:param name="i" select="1"/>

md> Wouldn't that be <xsl:param name="i" select="'1'"/>?

The last of those would make $i a string valued  variable, which is a bit
more effieicent than the result tree fragment of the original, but it
still means the string has to be parsed as a decimal literal when used
in something like
	<xsl:with-param name="i" select="$i + 1"/>

With the form I used $i is directly a number (xslt1) or equivalently a
double in xslt2.

David