Just duplicated all this in another thread! Oops, but glad I came to the same conclusions.
Ron mentioned that outdated installations can be a problem, which is fair, and the cause of our issues. Could an update check be built into XOT, so every so often it can 'call home' and check for versions newer than itself, then display a message on-screen or email the administrator? It should help us as Xerte is not one of our highest-traffic, business-critical systems and is mostly off the radar when it comes to updates.
Regards.