How to design a component which has N number of Avalon ST Sink ports in SOPC Builder

You're quite right that handling 512 connections graphically would be a chore, but then it was an academic question ...

But I have a few building blocks with either multiple sinks or multiple source and I have one with multiple sinks and sources. This means if I want to keep things tidy I have to write variations on a as needed basis, or try the .tcl way. I'm not fond of having to write a .tcl script because somebody else flawed the design (aside from the time spent to learn the quirks). And I have already seen too many .tcl scripts calling another .tcl script calling ... , you get the idea.

I didn't see how this setting the inputs (what about unused outputs?) to a default value is done in the example I studied, but again I'm not an a .Tcl expert nor do I read much Verilog. I'm pretty sure that a lot of 'unnecessary' info and warning messages will be generated. I can live with the Info messages (I generate some myself), but I always get worried about Warning messages, as an old saying goes: "a warning is an error waiting to happen" (this goes back to the early days of C-programming).

Can you explain why generics don't work, or what the rationale is behind leaving them out is?