value and/or type of node()

Well, let's see if my posting ability is up to standard?

I am simply experimenting with ways of "passing args" to templates, XSLT 1.0,
Sharepoint environment.
1) I succeeded in "with-param"
2) MK's book says that <xsl:template> is executed with no change to context,
current node is preserved, page 181, and elsewhere that RTFs or single-node
sets can generally be used as string values, so I try:

<xsl:template name="oneCell" >
	<td>
    <xsl:variable name="v1" select="node()"/>
OK	<xsl:value-of select="count($Rows[@GroupAssigned=$v1])"/>
BAD     <xsl:value-of select="count($Rows[@GroupAssigned=node()])"/>
	</td>
</xsl:template>

Which is called inside of a for-each loop, doing "pull" style processing.

Why does one work and not the other? What do I not understand?

Dick Penny