Thanks, Stephan. I did end up using tables, each of which is required to be home to three styles, which appeared to obviate the use of frames. In addition, there are two such containers, one on each of two pages of the document and each of which has slightly different page-placement and dimensions. Since the style determines the frame, it seemed to me that even a single style would, due to placement settings, present a problem, but I know this to be untrue, since some people use frames of all shapes and placements in a document. The position "coordinates" must not be fixed by the style, and those who use them this way probably just locally format Normal (or some other style) as suits the immediate text appearance for the frame, as is typical with formatting by most not aware of styles.
Anyway, now I have become more fully informed on why one may wish to avoid using these critters, and I can get back to poking my nose into 2013, now, with an eye towards studying for Expert certification.

Best,
Philip