Doug, FWIW, this is my understanding. From the point of view of the map,
by default (lockmeta="yes") the metadata in the map is 'locked' so that
any different metadata attribute-value pair in a referenced topic is
ignored. From the point of view of the referenced topic, values in the
map override (if the same attribute is set in both places) or supplement
(if it is set in the map but not in the topic). The confusion may be
that from the point of view of the topic lockmeta="yes" means the
topic's metadata values are not locked. As to bookmeta, etc., they
behave like the element they are specialized from.
Documentation from the DITA Adoption TC may help to clear this up, but
as Kris says changes to the spec will have to wait until after DITA 1.2.
/BN
>
