>I gotta side with JimN on this. I don't see a problem with either method. It appears to be more an issue of style. Having one or many objects depend on another object could be particularly useful in certain cases...

Matt,

There is a huge design difference between sibling objects beign interdependent and container-contained dependencies.

Siblings are not naturally dependent on each other, while contained object are by nature dependent on their container. Therefore using a design that fosters sibling dependency is introducing a new dependency to the mix, while captializing on the already present dependency between contained objects and their container is not introducing any new dependencies.