Hi Dave,
Was this post supposed to on another thread or a new one? Anyway to add to what you have said. Each template can have a context. That means you can assign 2 or more templates on a single content item and each template can have different context. Say one template is context 'public' and the other is 'intranet'.
The current CMS that I am working on is already capable of what you have stated and what I have stated is in the works. This is the current implementation:
if [get_template -item_id $item_id -context public] {
ad_returntemplate $template
} elseif {get_template -item_id $parent_id -context public] {
ad_returntemplate $template_of_folder
} else {
ad_returntemplate $default_template
}
There is also a big if that checks if its printer friendly.
You can also apply templates on a per content type basis, I haven't check on this yet.