Thanks for the quick reply, Anthony!!! We may try the following : break layout.html into header and footer (everything before and after <body>), then instead of using {{extend}} we will use conditional {{include}} statements at the top and bottom of each view. That will still give us bytecode compiling, and a fairly clean/straightforward way to have multiple platform dependent layouts (with minimal code change, and maximal code reuse!).
Thanks for your insight!!! Luis.