Heck, Michael did have a pointer to the Grander Scheme (as I mentioned earlier). It was a Philip piece talking about the entire templating problem and was quite comprehensive. Karl's scheme's pretty complex, perhaps this is why aD is looking for a less ornate way to deliver the functionality they need.
Michael, do you have the link I'm thinking of handy?
BTW, let's all thank Michael for his digging up this stuff for us. Digging through the aD site isn't on my daily agenda, though perhaps it should be. Feldstein seems to be finding everything worth knowing about. That's useful.