Tom, ad_form, or form builder, you can still use a site-wide formtemplate. So instead of making up each form individually, you can include the form template using a <formtemplate> adp tag. So all the adp markup that renders the forms is in one place. This makes it easier to maintain.
I have used the form builder, and ad_form to build real applications. I found ad_form made it faster to implement. Whenever I have run into a limitation, I have had to check through the source of the acs-templating package to figure out what exactly is going on.
You have referred to graphic designers making changes.Using a site-wide formtemplate, they can edit the master form template to change the look of the forms.
I really think the problems come from the incomplete form builder documentation. I have had to learn almost every part of the toolkit by reading the source code, so I know that the documentation is lacking. I think there is a definite effort to impove the documentation of the entire toolkit. Just remember this will take time.
