I forgot to mention this, but if people like this idea I'd be willing to be the one to actually have to try to make it happen.
Also, I'd like to point out the way I've envisioned/described it would be backwards compatible with the current setup and a blank base configuration. The case of cocoon.xconf would be to just increase the search path for configuration to both files, so having all the configuration in the local file shouldn't be a problem, and having all the components configured in the local file also wouldn't be a problem (the base cocoon.xconf could even just be detected as "not there" and ignored, and the base sitemap could just not be specified in cocoon.xconf and therefor not looked for).
The last thing is maybe there's some obvious way to actually do this seperation of configuration now and I just never knew about it.... in which case, anyone mind letting me in on the secret? :) Please? hehe
I haven't had time to read through your full email enough to do it justice, but you may find that the xpatch task may help with some what you discussed. I'm currently refactoring an app from very early 2.1 cvs and it's helped me. See http://wiki.cocoondev.org/Wiki.jsp?page=CustomConfigTarget and the xpatch explanation linked to from that page.
HTH, Geoff
