Hi Jang...

This is definitely a weakness in FM. If you do need to have the ability to swap in modifications to the content model and support specializations frequently, FM may not be the tool for you.

This may be a rationalization, but I like to compare the effort required to set up FM for a custom data model to that needed to prepare an XSL-FL stylesheet to publish content from that model. FM requires the effort up front .. just to be able to author the content, but once you've done that you can publish to PDF immediately. While, authoring tools that can easily adapt for a new model, get you authoring quickly, but you'll actually spend more time setting up the PDF output later on. It's a trade-off and really depends on where you want to spend your time and money. (If PDF output is a requirement, the FM route will most likely cost less if you take the full authoring/publishing workflow into account.)

Cheers,

....scott