XML : XSL-FO: Can fo:marker be used to store anything?

This question is part XSL-FO, part XSLT, and part DITA. In general, this question is an attempt to troubleshoot what I am doing wrong with fo:marker and to understand if what I am attempting is possible.

I'm attempting to use fo:marker to store text from a specific element and then retrieve that text in the header like you might expect. I'm doing this as part of a custom style sheet that is part of a DITA plugin. The idea is the plugin is for a document that lists a bunch of steps for procedures. The steps to these procedures generally include a bunch of pictures. So, the requirement is that when a step breaks across a page, the first sentence of the step acts as a running header of sorts. In DITA, the first sentence of a step is captured in a cmd element. So, my thought was I could setup the template that processes cmd elements with an fo:marker.

Here is what the template for cmd looks like with the marker I've added:

  <xsl:template match="*[contains(@class, ' task/cmd ')]" priority="1">      <fo:block xsl:use-attribute-sets="cmd">                               <xsl:call-template name="commonattributes"/>                       <xsl:if test="../@importance='optional'">              <xsl:call-template name="insertVariable">                  <xsl:with-param name="theVariableID" select="'Optional Step'"/>              </xsl:call-template>              <xsl:text> </xsl:text>          </xsl:if>          <fo:inline>              <fo:marker marker-class-name="current-step"/>          </fo:inline>          <xsl:apply-templates/>                  </fo:block>  </xsl:template>    

This doesn't work. I played around with this a bit and was only able to get this to work on a sibling element to info when I modified the template like this:

  <xsl:template match="*[contains(@class, ' task/info ')]">      <fo:block xsl:use-attribute-sets="info">              <fo:inline>              <fo:marker marker-class-name="current-step">                  <xsl:apply-templates/>              </fo:marker>          </fo:inline>          <xsl:call-template name="commonattributes"/>                      <xsl:apply-templates/>      </fo:block>  </xsl:template>    

The thing is, I tried this construction with the cmd element (i.e. include an apply-templates instruction) and it still produces nothing.

Is what I describe possible and why does my marker only work when I include a apply-templates instruction and only for the info element?