<!-- ** this doesn't work, but it should, right? ** -->
	<xsl:apply-template select="ChildOfRoot"/>

	<!-- ** This does work ** -->
	<xsl:apply-template select=/ROOTNODE/AnotherChildofRoot"/>

well they can't both select a non empty set of nodes.
If your document element is <ROOTNODE> then the only element
child of the root node / is ROOTNODE and so the first select expression 
will return the empty node set.

If the document element is <ChildOfRoot> then the xpath
expression /ROOTNODE/AnotherChildofRoot will not select anything.

I suspect that you are confusing the top level (document) element
(which is an element node) with the root node of the document  (which is
not)

David


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