I like to use the "unfold" and "fold" features a lot to go back and define cuts, notches, reliefs, etc. to the part while it is in the flat state.  For example, lets say I've got a 6 sided sheet metal box.  Then let's say I want to add some relief cuts to one of the corners along the tangency line of one one of the bends.  To do this, I might use the "Unfold" feature to put the part into a flat pattern state, and then define my sketch/cut, and then us the "Fold" feature to get the part back to my full 3D geometry.  In this example I use the "collect all bends" when I use the "Fold" feature.  Maybe that has something to due with my problem.

ISSUE:  For extremely complex sheet metal parts that have >100 features, if I want to delete a flange that has a "Fold" feature as a child (i.e. because i used the collect all bends check box), when I try to delete the flange it wants to delete the Fold/Unfold features and everything in between.  This sucks.  Is there any way to freeze features and fix them later?  So for example, is there anyway to force it to delete the flange WITHOUT deleting the children?  Then I would need to edit the "Fold/Unfold" features and remove the missing reference for the bend that is no longer there.  This is maddening.  My only workaround is to suppress my flanges that I don't need anymore instead of deleting them.  But then my model tree ends up with a bunch of features that are suppressed and aren't really needed. 

FYI - I work for a consulting firm so we ultimately hand these models over to clients.  We generally like to clean them up before handing them over, but I don't have a good solution for this.  Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I think one thing that might help would to not use the "collect all bends" function when using Fold/Unfold and just grab the bends I need for a given feature.  But still....that doesn't help my current models that have this issue.

Thanks!