Will Robertson wrote:
> Before we start solving the problem properly, we should answer the
> question: "are the modules *supposed* to be able to be loaded
> independently?". I'm not the one to answer that...

Once you try to do anything useful, then I'd say "no".  For example,
I've nearly finished my number parser, numparse3.  A test document gives
the following \listfiles output:

 *File List*
 article.cls    2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX document class
  size10.clo    2005/09/16 v1.4f Standard LaTeX file (size option)
numparse3.sty    2008/11/23 v1 Number parsing for LaTeX3
 l3names.sty    2008/09/15 v817 L3 Experimental Naming Scheme for TeX
Primitive
s
  l3prop.sty    2008/09/15 v817 L3 Experimental Property Lists
  l3toks.sty    2008/09/14 v813 L3 Experimental Token Registers
 l3expan.sty    2008/09/19 v831 L3 Experimental Argument Expansion module
   l3tlp.sty    2008/11/24 v847 L3 Experimental Token List Pointers
l3basics.sty    2008/11/23 v845 L3 Experimental basic definitions
   l3num.sty    2008/09/18 v826 L3 Experimental token numbers
 l3quark.sty    2008/09/17 v824 L3 Experimental Quark Commands
   keys3.sty    2008/10/31 v21 Key management for LaTeX3
l3keyval.sty    2008/09/12 v807 L3 Experimental keyval processing
   l3int.sty    2008/09/16 v822 L3 Experimental Integer module
 l3token.sty    2008/09/18 v828 L3 Experimental token investigation and
manipul
ation
   l3prg.sty    2008/09/30 v839 L3 Experimental control structures
l3messages.sty    2008/09/15 v817 L3 Experimental LaTeX Messages module
    l3io.sty    2008/09/13 v808 L3 Experimental i/o module
 l3clist.sty    2008/09/30 v839 L3 Experimental comma separated lists

which seems to cover most of expl3.  If I then explicitly load expl3, it
adds:

   expl3.sty    2008/09/30 v839 L3 Experimental code bundle wrapper
   l3box.sty    2008/09/12 v807 L3 Experimental Box module
  l3calc.sty    2008/09/15 v817 L3 Experimental calc module
  l3skip.sty    2008/10/30 v844 L3 Experimental skip registers
l3precom.sty    2008/09/15 v817 L3 Experimental precompilation module
   l3seq.sty    2008/09/15 v817 L3 Experimental sequences and stacks
  l3xref.sty    2008/09/15 v817 L3 Experimental cross referencing

I'm sure that most of those will soon appear once I start on "xsiunitx",
so for real users I don't see the need to have the modules independent.
-- 
Joseph Wright