I got sick of writing rules too, hence the diversion! yeah so you could extend that tree decision processes this. You could add a cost function on the trees, w

I got sick of writing rules too, hence the diversion! yeah so you could extend that tree decision processes this. You could add a cost function on the trees, which includes long range communication between nodes (e.g. the results section of a document includes at least one word commonly associated with results). So you could go to higher levels of abstractions. However, I say limiting yourself to even a very abstract parse tree structure does kinda exclude the spatial layout of words on a page and the semantic meaning behind the layout (tables, web pages, code formatting!). MIPs can fully express tree logic so you lose nothing.