> > <xsl:apply-templates select="$sections/section"/>
>
> Why is this annoying? (I do it all the time:-) if the xpath to select
> $sections is big and complicated and you need to query into it multiple
> times then you either need to use a variable, or trust your system's
> optimiser to implictly cache the result of the expression the first time
> you use it.

In this case the variable would exist as a global variable in a
different stylesheet - ctrl->f for it in the stylesheet where it's
used returns nothing, so then you have to check each stylesheet in the
hierachy to find out exactly what the variable contains.  It's a real
mess.

I would expect in your case you define the variable just above where
it is used multiple times to save replicating code, which is what any
normal person would do.