A great way to test if you know What Revit Wants is to try and run a complicated high rise or health facility using model groups. The principle and general functionality of groups is fine, but they can get very difficult to manage if not treated properly. However, they can be mastered.
As Ceilidh Higgins puts it:
Whilst groups are error prone and seem to have a lot of bugs … they are still the best available solution within revit for collecting together repetitive sets of objects.
She recently presented at RTC on this subject, and she has provided the associated presentation slides for download and viewing.
Embedded here:
via
Get your groupon! A guide to Revit groups | The Midnight Lunch
You may also be interested in this AU class by Aaron Maller:
Autodesk® Revit® Links, Groups, and Documentation: How to Make It Really Work!
Whenever possible on large projects, we choose linking over groups for repeating units. The projects that use links go 100% better than those that rely on groups. What Revit Wants? Sometime Revit doesn't even know what it wants. Groups vs. Links has been a longstanding debate, After getting burned multiple times with groups, it would be hard to give it another chance. While some in our office understand the complexities with groups the masses do not.
I definitely understand where you are coming from Jeff. The Linking option is often more stable and predictable, but takes a bit more setting up to get it right. As you said, you need to work within the skill level of your team.