I did "try" mikes suggestion in a novice way
" is to use the string-value of the element node, rather than its text node
"
children.

by writing:

<template match="NODE/string()">


Which should obviously work right ?

No, you can only match on nodes, not on primitive values.
What you can do is
  <xsl:template match="NODE">
    <xsl:value-of select="."/>
  </xsl:template>

	Martin Honnen
	http://msmvps.com/blogs/martin_honnen/