Then I must be missing something. Isn't the whole point of linking directly to another repository the ability to always be referencing the current state of the subscribed-to tree? Not a snapshot. Or does it not work that way?

bob

Please no. SVN externals are made of pain and fail. It should be obvious why, if you think about it -- the external and local versions are not locked in sync, so you can't get a "known good" configuration when doing e.g. regression testing.

Every project I've been in that has used svn externals has eventually abandoned them for that reason.

-mental