David,
I have the same problem as you described in your e-mail to the Axis user list, regarding schema attributes of type String (java.lang.String :) ).
Walking through the RC2 code, and comparing the code w/ 1.1, it appears something got dropped when the modules were refactored. Meaning, it is definately a bug. The test for a SimpleType of the attribute is using its element's namespace, not the attributes namespace, so it never matches the http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema namespace (or whatever year (1999-2001) you are using.
I am in a similar situation, in that I can't change the wsdl to work around the problem ... a third party (a standards group in this case) manages it.
Since I know the problem, I will have a patch to submit in a day or so, but if there is already any solution you have found, it would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Tom Gordon
