i think you're right only i'm just not cluey enough!
the example is at
http://lavaworks-testsite.com.au/uci/index.php?id=108, you'll see that the same page sits at
http://lavaworks-testsite.com.au/uci/index.php?id=109. so there is the '[[*content]] bit, then there is a table (built into the template), which has 3 template variables (tab1, tab2, and tab3).
so if i used the symlink option, it copies the page, plus the [[*content]] section, plus the table, only not the info from the tvs. the template is called 'product_template' and is used for various products (so in this case it's 'Fixed Term Investments', only it's also used for 'Money Manager' (
http://lavaworks-testsite.com.au/uci/index.php?id=110) and others, so i don't think default tv values would work...?
it has ended up that I've created a template called 'product_duplicate' where the only template variable they have to enter a value in is the id of the page they are copying, and this uses getResourceField to fill in the tabs. it only seems like it should be easy enough for the client to do. Symlink would still be awesome as i could do away with a template, only not sure how to get the table of tabs to be included as part of the [[*content]].
thanks again for your reply Bob.