I'm translating some complex DOM code (Perl) into XSLT and have run
into a problem I haven't been able to solve.  I'm working with Saxon 9
and Java 1.6.0_012.  Here's what's happening.

I've got this XML (really I've got thousands of levels in a document
but this'll suffice for this question)...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF8"?>
<toplevel>
    <level link-id="a6" level-type="INDEX2" level-nbr="4">
        <name>LIFO inventories</name>
        <applied-name>applied name</applied-name>
        <xref-list>. <i>See</i>
            <xref-index>
                <link-to link-
ref="txcnot_indx_top_2008q1_inventories">INVENTORIES</link-to>
                <link-to link-ref="dummy_linkref">DUMMY</link-to>
            </xref-index>
        </xref-list>
        <dont-touch-me>Please</dont-touch-me>
    </level>
</toplevel>

What I want to do is to make a deep copy of children of <level> up to
and not including <dont-touch-me> excluding <applied-name>, replace
<link-to link-ref=""> with <link-to-bwd link-to-frag="@link-ref"> ,
serialize it all and store it in a processing instruction.  I'm able
to grab the elements, serialize them with the Saxon serialize()
extension function and put them in a processing instruction, but I
haven't been able to replace the link-to elements.  Perhaps I'm going
about it all the wrong way.

Here's the XSLT I've got so far that serializes the desired elements
but doesn't translate the link-tos...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="2.0" xmlns:saxon="http://saxon.sf.net/" extension-element-
prefixes="saxon">
    <xsl:output indent="yes" encoding="UTF8"/>
    <xsl:output name="serializer" method="xml" indent="no" omit-xml-
declaration="yes"/>

    <xsl:template match="/">
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="level">
        <xsl:variable name="make_me_a_pi">
            <xsl:copy-of select="node()[not(name() = 'applied-name')
and not(name() = 'dont-touch-me') and not(preceding-sibling::dont-
touch-me)]"/>
        </xsl:variable>
        <xsl:element name="level">
            <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
            <xsl:processing-instruction name="a_pi"><xsl:value-of
select="saxon:serialize($make_me_a_pi, 'serializer')"/></
xsl:processing-instruction>
        </xsl:element>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="*">
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Ralph