The basic components are actually the "Woodstock" components. There is (rather paltry) documentation at
https://woodstock.dev.java.net/Documentation.htm. I agree that CSS is much more of a pain with them, but I really like the way they look, and you get a bit of AJAX without much pain. This is the closest I have seen to "Swing on the Web".
The "Preview in browser" is hobbled by the fact that it can't interpret the EL expressions, and the AJAX pipeline can't work either. I guess it is ok for a quick look-see, but I have not taken it very seriously.
* To be honest I gave up on the Basic components and am currently using the Standard components. With the Standard components I have more control over CSS styling. To edit styles for the Basic components you will need a Theme Builder (http://blogs.sun.com/winston), which is still alittle shaky. Hopefully, this will be primetime for 6.1.
* I agree with your last point. Again, SOL.
* Beware the 'Preview in Browser' vs. true 'Debug' page rendering as the two render your pages differently. I have a thread post open for this. Have you seen a difference between the two?
