> Ah, but I fear your opinion here doesn't count:-) I know you'd rather
i am an author too... :-}
(and I know that getting the front matter right is just trivial
compared to the rest of the paper)

 > If on the otherhand it takes a more permissive approach, for instance
 > not complaining too much as long as some kind of address is given in
 > either affiliation or address commands, and just using whichever is
 > available, then the useability of manuscripts prepared as preprints
 > with production classes that do *require* certain fields would be much
 > reduced.
 >
i don't mind people lazily omitting fields, but what I *do* mind is them
writing:

 \author{ ...\footnotemark{\ddag}}
 .....
 \footnotetext{\ddag}{Corresponding author, current address The Moon}

ie i can cope with missing information, but not with visual formatting
masquerading as logical markup

so allow people to leave stuff out, but try and stop them inserting
horrors into what they do write. BAN THE \thanks COMMAND!!!!!

Sebastian