> First question: It seems odd to me that the newline character would be
> considered significant and not get stripped

newlines that are followed by non-white space characters are _never_
considered insignificatnt by XML or stripped by XSLT.

You want the normalize-space function, 

select="normalize-space(vendor_name)"

David

________________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star Internet. The
service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive
anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
http://www.star.net.uk
________________________________________________________________________

 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list