jmg108,
We use the SWX BOM and not excel. I tried this on a small assembly in 2005 SP 1.1. I have 3 configurations on 3 different sheets all tied (linked) to the BOM on sheet 1. All the balloons match, as expected. Seems to be working for me (at least on that drawing). Do you by chance have any derived configurations? I have seen problems with that in the past, where item numbers do not match when using derived configurations. I think the reason why the excel BOM is still available in drawings is because SolidWorks knows the SW BOM isn't quite up to snuff yet. They keep tweaking it, but its not as robust as what is should be for it being the 2nd release that its been available. I don't knbow if you could pull off what you are trying to do with the excel based BOM unless you put a BOM on each sheet, as you mentioned.