Synthetic ear + inplace?

[Sachin Patel]

Could someone describe on what the synthetic ear support provides?   
Can it be used in conjunction with in place deployment for the ear  
itself as well as child modules?  Or do the modules referenced in the  
ear have to already exist in the repository?

I'm hoping there is a way to provide support for the first.  Where an  
ear can be deployed and its child modules have not yet been deployed  
AND they are not nested within the ear? If so how is this configured?

Thanks.

- sachin