Sorry - I re-read your post and realised I neglected to directly cover this point...

2) I notice that in order to insert additional pages in a website one can drag a page out of the templates folder. The pages in the templates folders have preset text fields on them. If one edits the header on one page and then tells Web Designer to duplicate that text onto the other pages, the duplicated text is overlaid on top of the unwanted preset text fields. Which means one has to go to each page and remove the unnecessary preset text. Is this the acceptable process?

Yes, this can happen but it doesn't have to be that way.

For example, if your objective is to create a bunch of pages in which the title text is different, then of course you would not want those text elements to be linked as repeating objects.

If your objective is to create pages that have the same title text, then you make that text a repeating object on the first page you create, and it is then repeated on all other pages, AND it will be updated in one step any time you need to do so.

If you change your mind half way through the development process, and want repeating text, then of course XWD doesn't know that the text you already have on the pages is now redundant - so it will display both.

That's why it helps to plan your pages in advance.

By the way - I don't think Xara is any worse than other applications in this respect. I can't think of an application that would avoid the situation you describe.

Cheers,
Geoff