Trying to dig up some old posts on behaviour sheets, I came across two interesting posts I made to xsl-list back in August 1998:
http://www.biglist.com/lists/xsl-list/archives/199808/msg00053.html
My feeling on the issue is that a spec be developed for tree addressing patterns that serves the needs of both XPointers and XSL patterns. Such a spec could stand apart (but be normative to) both XLink and XSL.
http://www.biglist.com/lists/xsl-list/archives/199808/msg00134.html
It occurs to me that maybe the formatting objects could be separate too.I would actually like XSL to consist of three separate things:
1. Pattern Language for Tree Addressing; 2. DTD and Specification of Formatting Objects; 3. Specification for Stylesheets themselves, Tree Transforms, etc.
Given that XPath, XSL-FO and XSLT now have very separate existences, it's funny to think they started off as essentially one spec.