<blockquote><i> a content item and an image are objects in their own right, they'll show up in any CMS interface at least.</i></blockquote>
You're right, but this is because the CMS is broken. See my previous comment about this fact probably being a historical artifact.
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(the CMS began as a "non-ACS alternative to the ACS", i.e.was developed to play alone, not with friends, and as such makes no effort to determine where content comes from. And Karl Goldstein, it's architect, developed a separate db api, among other things, rather than make the least attempt to integrate their efforts with ongoing ACS development, regardless of merit).
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You're just seeing an artifact of a very broken effort at integration, which was partial at best and at worst better not discussed in public.
It's left to us to clean up this mess. Fortunately, the next mess (ACS 5) probably won't be completed and will be such a mess that no rational person will touch it. So we won't feel compelled to clean it up :)
<p>The CMS should play with CMS content only. The CR was billed as a general tool for (non-CMS) packages. It's not a general tool, and your post simply amplifies points made elsewhere to that effect.
<p>We shouldn't let a broken CMS govern our thinking, no more than we should look at the template package's so-called parameter parsing and decide to toss ad_proc overboard...
<p>We should look forward and think about how things *should* work, rather than unravel how incompatible chunks are barely kludged together and then accept that understanding as a blueprint to follow without critically examining the result.
