> Any thoughts on all my rambling?

It's always _much_ easier to work with sample inputs and required
outputs than ramblings, and someone is more likely to reply to a
concise question which takes at most a few minutes to read.

a:1   b:2   c:3    d:4    f:6
h:8   k:11 nbsp  nbsp nbsp

<category>
<images>
  <image name="a" display="true">1</image>
  <image name="b" display="true">2</image>
  <image name="c" display="true">3</image>
  <image name="d" display="true">4</image>
  <image name="e" display="false">5</image>
  <image name="f" display="true">6</image>
  <image name="g" display="false">7</image>
  <image name="h" display="true">8</image>
  <image name="i" display="false">9</image>
  <image name="j" display="false">10</image>
  <image name="k" display="true">11</image>
</images>
</category>

I have most of the XSLT worked out, I just cannot figure out how to
process the node set in the $imageNodes variable:

<xsl:template match="images">
   <table border="3">

   <xsl:variable name="imageNodes">
     <xsl:apply-templates/>
   </xsl:variable>

<!-- The following line does not work, even though the $imageNodes
contains a node set of image nodes. -->
     <xsl:for-each select="$imageNodes/image[position() mod 5 = 1]">
       <tr>
         <xsl:for-each select=".|following-sibling::image[position() &lt; 5]">
           <td>
             <xsl:value-of select="concat(@name,':',.)"/>
           </td>
         </xsl:for-each>
         <xsl:call-template name="gen_blank_table_col">
           <xsl:with-param name="col_num">
             <xsl:value-of select="5 -
(count(.|following-sibling::image[position() &lt; 5]))"/>
           </xsl:with-param>
         </xsl:call-template>
       </tr>
     </xsl:for-each>

   </table>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template match="image[@display='true']">
   <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template match="image[@display='false']">
 </xsl:template>

 <!-- =======================================================================
-->
 <!-- This template is used to generate blank table col.-->
 <!--=======================================================================
-->
 <xsl:template name="gen_blank_table_col">
   <xsl:param name="col_num"/>
   <xsl:if test="$col_num > 0">
     <td><xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">&amp;nbsp;</xsl:text></td>
     <xsl:call-template name="gen_blank_table_col">
       <xsl:with-param name="col_num">
         <xsl:value-of select="$col_num - 1"/>
       </xsl:with-param>
     </xsl:call-template>
   </xsl:if>
 </xsl:template>