Why does Motion use two Login Forms?

Since Six Apart Support has told me this is not supported, I am turning to the forums to possibly drum up some idea as to why this is the way it is. The exact quote from support is: "we're not able to advise you on whether or not you will see the results you desire - this is not a tested or recommended change, and not something for which we can provide any detailed support."

I posted this on my blog but hope someone here can explain things to me. Hit the blog post to see the screen shots I use to illustrate my point. http://bgviewsnetwork.com/dev/2009/03/why-does-movable-type-motion-use-two-login-forms/

I have come across something that perplexes me: A Motion-based blog has its own Login Form than any non-Motion blogs in the system.

Wouldn't it be a better solution to have one universal template for the end user login? (MT 4.24 did this) With the introduction of Motion, Six Apart has taken what was once universal and now broken it into Motion and non-Motion based blogs.

The effect is rather jarring to the end user. They see an entirely different User Interface, and if there is one thing you do not want as a designer, is having a user seeing multiple ways to do the same thing. No matter what blog they come from, I want them to see the same login screen.

So far I have modified one blog, a Community Blog, in this case, to use the Motion-themed user login template. I have done this by installing the motion_mt.js and motion.js templates in that blog (only used on the Motion-themed Login Form template).

I think this change is an oversight in the new version of MT, and it stems from the fact that the Login Form System Template, among others, are only local to the Motion-based blogs in the system, Community Blog/Forum, and other Template Sets do not have these System Templates in them - they rely on the Global System Templates. There is really no need for this, but there is also no way to add or remove System Templates.

In my efforts to "globalize" Motion as much as possible, having to have a Login Form system template in every Motion-based blog is a waste. At least the non-Motion based blogs use the "simple" login screen of old, which I have now transformed into the new login screen.

Hopefully that made sense. It makes no sense to me to have two entirely different login screens for Motion or non-Motion based blogs.

Examples: I have MT 4.25 setup to use similar CSS and images that I am currently using on the live site. A non-Motion Login Form would look like this, our current live login page. I have modified the Global Login Form and I did not take a screen shot prior.

Once you add a Motion site, you get a lot of blog-specific System Templates, one of which is Login Form. This new Login Form is much better designed, and something I desire to use through the entire site. My opinions on aesthetics aside, presenting the user with two drastically different login pages is not good, and will not work for my application. Here is the same screen the user sees when they click "Sign In" from a Motion-based blog.

Please note that BG Views Developer Blog has not been changed into a Motion-based blog in 4.25. I have made a lot of modifications to the Global Login Form System Template to make the "simple" Login Form mimic the Motion login form.

I will later, of course, re-skin the Motion-themed Login Form to look like our site. However in the current situation, I will have to apply this to the Global Template *and* all local System Templates that use the Motion template set.