RE the following archived discussion.
Is this still the case 9 years on, now that AJAX in APEX is far more prominent? I similarly have a page which has a few regions on it, and a few items. What I would like is the ability to refresh all refreshable items on a page with an AJAX call, without having to explicitly name each refreshed item. This is because I want to create a dashboard screen which updates semi-regularly (say every 30 seconds) and I don't want the flicker/blank of a full page "traditional" refresh.