James writes:

to answer the last question first:

 > Also are there plans to release any experimental template definitions,
 > to supplement the two caption templates and the initial example on the
 > slides?

yes there are plans. there is a whole bunch of stuff for lists, headings, tocs,
paragraph formatting, etc more or less ready, but it depends on the galley
interface (see talk) and i'm still changing my mind on the implementation of
that and working on the documentation.

(the sample on initials like most of the other stuff described in the talk is
actually working --- not just white paper :-)

David is working on the frontmatter part so that might come soon as well.

but on the other hand it would be nice if one or the other of the people
listening in would try their hand on the stuff as well without being
influenced by the templates i wrote already.

Also:

  without actual implementations it would be very beneficial (in my eyes) to
  think about suitable template types for certain tasks. i have deliberately
  taken some time writing down thoughts on a "caption" template type (perhaps
  better called "typesetcaption") to explain why this is something that needs
  thought, ideas and input from many people.  in the talk a few template types
  are described as well (the list template type is actually implemented with
  two different templates one for vertically oriented lists and one for inline
  lists) and i would be very glad if people would step back and try thinking
  whether those types provide what is needed?  do they pass the right kind of
  information to the formatting tasks? is there something else needed or
  different approaches for, say, lists

  suitable template types to discuss would be

   headings
   footnotes
   lists

or any other you would fancy but for the moment that seems to me enough to
keep the discussion a bit focused

frank

ps will come to the other part of the mail later