I am 100% against you needing to use an interface to assign variable names, because it makes node template un-distributable, without distributing the additional configuration too.
True, but I also don't think it's super easy for themers to rename or assign variables. What happens is that themers inevitably have to figure out what drupal is sending them - and it's annoying having to print_r just to understand what kind of output you are getting. I think a UI is a great idea. And I also think it's important for configurations to stay in the theme. Maybe theme configurations could be written to a special file by the UI and shipped with the theme instead of stored in the database. That way all the configurations are in one place and end users and themers can both modify it either in a UI or by hand. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/