> Again, I don't know why the self axis isn't available for 
> attribute nodes... any ideas?

The self axis is available for attribute nodes. But the principal node kind
of the self axis is "element", so self:xxx means self::element(xxx) and
self::* means self::element(*). In 2.0 you can write

self::attribute(xxx)

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/