I've used a set of templates that call each other and work their way
down the list, and use parameters to keep the id and name
fields that
I need.  I think it works, and I'll test it on some bigger data sets
and see how I go.

That's the right approach. But you don't need to pass parameters for the id
and name fields: you can always navigate back up to them using the parent
and ancestor axes.

Thanks,
Nick