The XSLT 2 stylesheets

As I went digging through the XSLT 2 stylesheets again this morning,
after a reasonable absence, I became more and more convinced that
they're a mess architecturally.

It all works in its own clever way, but the fact that overriding the
root template involves deducing that you actually have to override

  <xsl:template match="*" mode="m:root">

strikes me as setting the bar awfully high for your average
customizer. Doubly so when you consider that overriding "/" causes the
whole edifice to fall over.

I'm tempted, with an eye towards an XProc-aware future, to rip it all
apart and rewrite it as an explicit sequence of discrete
transformations instead of a mode-driven, internal sequence of
transformations.

Thoughts?

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <>      | A man can believe a considerable
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | deal of rubbish, and yet go about
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | his daily work in a rational and
                                   | cheerful manner.--Norman Douglas