I love the automatic nature of DD but I have to emulate another program so I have to lay ouot the fields and tab order just so. Is this beyond the ability of DD customization?

Hi Norisk, no it's not beyond DD have a look at this article series here on my blog:

1. Custom PageTemplates Part 1 - Custom PageTemplates with Ajax Control Toolkit Tabs
2. Custom PageTemplates Part 2 - A variation of Part 1 with the Details and SubGrid in Tabs
3. Custom PageTemplates Part 3  - Dynamic/Templated Grid with Insert (Using ListView)

The first two create a tabbed page using ajax control tookit and the third creates a dynamic ListView page the neat thing is that you can provide your own Layout, Item, InsertItem and EditItem Templates on a per table basis and Part 4 when I get to it will do the same as part three but with the FormView.

Hope this helps