> The -real- issue here though is in scope -- that we can't carry record
> metadata outside of the record data, and can't request record metadata in
> a different schema to the data.

Why not? We have a schema at:
http://srw.o-r-g.org/schemas/rec/1.0/
(Ok maybe it's not quite a schema, but there is an instance example and a
schema could be written in about 5 minutes.)

I thought its purpose was to allow you to request a specific record according
to that schema, in order to retrieve the record metadata. What am I missing
here?

--Ray