Maybe you could point me in the right direction; somewhere in the code,
org-mode must be aware of the number of nested headlines in order for
show-branches and show-children to work. Or maybe it is not.

In any case, I'd try and adapt the code to display a number indicating (1)
position in the hierarchy; and (2) number of headlines at that / those
position(s).

Apologies if the original message was poorly articulated.

2013/2/5 Bastien <bzg@altern.org>

> 42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Is there a way to see how many nested headlines there are within a
> > higher-level headline (not necessarily top-level)?
>
> This is a nice feature of VimOrganizer but no, there is no way to do
> this with Org for now.
>
> --
>  Bastien
>