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Anne, "I'd say, rather, that the layers, per se, give us the traction we need to see what we can't see, when we're in the midst of it all..." -- I fully agree. These layers I consider to be like concept-maps, literally almost, describing and explaining the relations between the (modeled) objects from one point of view. Each layer is one way of 'connecting the dots' and making sense of them, giving each intension in relation to the others and giving them their role in their midst (in the thick of it). So each layer is one perspective and their combination, in the tracks (again a nice metaphor, like Melville's 'balancing the ship' elsewhere) through all of them at once, combines the perspectives in the dots, or in the model-objects, as 'linking pins'. Thus not only get all these layers extra meaning, but also, get these objects more 'grain', a less tacit/more explicit role in their context(s).