I'm in favor of having the parent appear in the contexts.
My usual mode of processing GTD is not to plan out every last detail, but to define a next step to complete the parent or move the parent toward completion.
When I complete the last child of a parent, I want to see the parent in the context so I can determine if the parent needs more actions to complete it, or if the parent is complete.
A second best alternative would be to have the stalled projects filter in the projects view to look for parents or projects that have no children. Currently, the stalled projects filter only shows projects with tasks in the future. To me this isn't a stalled project because it has children they just aren't active yet.
The way OF is set up now, I feel like I am flying blind.
Curt's script is a brilliant use of recursiveness and a great script to run for double checking. I modded it so it doesn't require Growl and shows a display box instead. I've also changed it to flag the parent instead of adding the text, for the main reason that it's easy to click on the flag to de-flag it. Although Curt has another script to remove the text.
The problem I have now is, I also use flags to tag items I want to get done today. I may go back to the text at some point so I don't have two sets of tags.
Curt's script is a tremendous help. Thank you Curt.
I also use a widget that will bring up the parent item when there are no more children to complete. You can then complete the parent or add more children to it. The only problem is the widget doesn't work on projects, because I haven't found a way to complete a project through Applescript.
Here is the widget:
www.krank.us
There is an updated version to be released soon to polish some UI issues in the widget.