Is "border" in pm3d redundant?

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

I was working on an application for which there's to be color surface 
and mesh lines.  I began down the route of "border" feature for pm3d, 
which is fairly new.  But after a while of not getting what I'd hoped 
for in hidden3d mode, I began to wonder if pm3d/border is redundant 
because gnuplot almost has such capability without the "border" feature. 
  Having

splot x+y with pm3d border <line characteristics>

is sort of re-implementing

splot x+y with pm3d, x+y with lines <line characteristics>

In the long run we'd like some type of surface color control and true 
hidden3d surface removal.  I know pm3d and hidden3d don't combine just 
right, but that doesn't mean the syntax can't trend in a desired direction.

The general principle is that the user may want to use the same function 
or data set for multiple plot elements, e.g.,

splot "foo" with lines <line chars> [and] surfels <face chars>

(or "polygons", "faces", whatever).  However, the "and" concept kind of 
exists already with the special "-" filename:

splot "foo" with lines <line chars>,
       "-" with surfels <face chars>

That is essentially saying "and" because there is no new function/file 
specification.

So, I'm wondering if things are branching here a bit with regard to 
pm3d/border and in the long run what the best approach is.  As I said, 
after some use, I have second thoughts of adding more plot elements via 
some existing element's option.  I'd rather use a syntax that seems more 
in line with the eventual concept.

Dan