To single source or not?

[teknicol -at- inter -dot- net -dot- il]

Techwhirlers,

I have a few questions that have been bothering me... 

Single sourcing seems a great idea to technical writers that are under 
tremendous pressure. You write one source document and then use it - maybe 
with some modifications in conditional text - to create html help, html 
etc.

As a lone technical writer and the single real English speaker in a 
company, I opted to use single sourcing as that seemed the only way that I 
could keep up with the company's incredible deadlines. After the program 
was bought and I had created my first set of documents, I started getting a 
lot of flack from the Head of R&D. He wanted each set of documents to be 
written with a different style. He wanted no screencaptures in the html 
help. I felt that I was going backwards - although I agreed that the old 
style was to have different styles of writing for each type of document - 
but I did what he wanted.

Now, I am getting flack for not being able to maintain the documents as 
quickly and as easily as they would like. Of course, no-one wants to listen 
that I was trying to avoid all this pressure and mess when I choose single 
sourcing. My opinons are dismissed as I am inexperienced compared to the 
Head of R&D.

My questions are the following:

1. Was I wrong to suggest single sourcing? Is it generally not an 
acceptable solution?
2. What does one do about different types of documents needing different 
styles of writing?
3. Do professionally designed help files contain screencaptures?

Thanks,

A confused user of single sourcing...