Welcome to the Implementation world. Looks like you are grappling with the conflicting requirements of control and flexibility that Indian customers seem to clamour for. You talk control - they want flexibility. You provide flexibility and they demand control.
Having to cancel all downstream documents is an excellent control. However some documents need a hard control. Like between a PO and a PREC or a Sales Order and a Delivery Note. Then there are other documents like making a payment, where it is not catastrophic to have such flexibility.
So, maybe we can come up with a Control Matrix of documents and decide where it can be allowed and where it can’t. And keep the current schema for documents that need a hard link. But allow the new schema where documents need soft links. But then implementing it may become too tedious.
But if I (on behalf of my installed base) have to choose between the existing configuration and the proposed configuration, I’d pick the existing configuration meaning No, please don’t.
However, if we can build a toggle in an appropriate settings page and the organizations can chose to have the existing configuration or move to the proposed configuration, it would be perfect.
Getting a document back to the same number is a hack that I’ve published a couple of years ago and here’s the link:
Thanks
Jay