Dear Liam,

> But i prefer to keep things as simple and maintainable as possible!

In the real world I agree. Or at least, I am learning to agree.

However, what makes this hard to maintain is arguably the opacity of it
(building and applying an XSLT that never gets seen), not the two steps.

A Step One writing an XSLT to be applied in Step Two could also be
orchestrated from outside using Ant or a script. As you well know! p
,
depending on the case, this approach does not have to be impossible to
understand.

Of course maintainability is very contingent ... I am not sure I'd deploy
XSLT-generating XSLT for a one-off either.

Cheers, Wendell