Maybe it is considered advanced for KDE4. Many apps such as Konsole in KDE4 all purport to support this advanced option in their help - so it could be argued that it is a bug in KDE4 and not a new feature.
As for it being basic - I've been using it in X for 20+ years. I guess I'd consider it more primitive than advanced. KDE3 had great support for it.
I've looked at KWin Rules before. From the provided examples and trying it I didn't see an obvious way to handle my use scenario - perhaps you can suggest the appropriate technique or point me at an example that works similar to below:
- Specify a specific profile -- call it "ProjectA"
- Provide an ICON or some other method for starting ProjectA
- When started the following happens
-- 6 konsole windows are opened
--- each with separate geometry for placement and size
--- each with different titles
--- each has a specified home directory to start in
--- one starts cscope
--- 2 start VIM
--- 1 starts an ssh to a target machine
--- 1 is tailing a log file
-- 1 firefox window is opened
--- specific geometry for placement and size
-- 1 custom app is opened
--- specific geometry for placement and size
Creating "ProjectB" should be an easy copy of "ProjectA" and allow for quick editing of window placement, rules, etc.
It should be trivial to copy these rule sets to another machine.