template XPATH root and wildcard selector

I notice in the template docmentation that the ref attribute  is CURRENTLY 
unsupported

Do I uderstand from this that it is not possible to qualify the wildcard 
selector with a specific XPATH path

...... or is the syntax invalid ???

For example, it appears that currently these two forms of the xpath produce 
the same ouput nodes of an RDF file

          a)  Seq[1]/li[1]/*
          b)  Seq[1]/li[1]/Seq

in each case only the immediate  node is selected. whereas the former should 
produce all the children of Seq[1]/li[1]/

PS Need less to say the unqualified wildcard selector (*) works fine.