To build upon Andrew's idea of "you could prompt the user for which fields" (not my favorite choice, but it requires less resource$):
You can place a varied quantity of fields in numerous sections of each type in the report, prompt for what they want (or pass along the parms), then display/suppress selectively based on the number of fields they passed.
i.e.,
DBA: <F1> <F2> <F3> <F4> <F5>
DBB: <F1> <F2> <F3> <F4>
...
DBA/B = the detail bands (you can pass along groupings too)
<Fx> = Field X (these are formulas which are populated from the fields passed)
If they choose 5 fields, suppress DBB, if 4, suppress DBA, etc...
This requires hard coding the <F1> thru <F5> formulas in the report, but it looks like it's a low feature customizable report, sorta, kinda...
Right, the RDC is better, but this is a workable solution.
-k
kai@informeddatadecisions.com