[viraptor]

But it also results in a mess of what-can-override-what. You can't have just #override. You've got "automatic", "default", "override" and later added "force_override" and "force_default", because "override"/"default" were not enough. And I'm still running into situations (especially when working with different teams deploying on the same host) where I want to override something that can't be changed anymore (or doesn't merge the way I need to).

This is one of the most annoying parts of chef for me. And it is quite complex: http://docs.opscode.com/essentials_cookbook_attribute_files....

[blueskin_]

That sounds almost exactly like the current problem I'm grappling with in Puppet. Variables can be overridden and inherited, except when they can't.