SharePoint XSLT and line breaks in multiline plain-text fields

Sometimes I feel like I'm an archaeologist.
This one must be one of the oldest frequently asked question about XSLT and SharePoint. Just Google for "SharePoint xslt line breaks multiline" and what you'll get is a list of sites basically all suggesting the same thing: a custom XSLT template to convert the carriage return to a <br> element.

The question is: is it really the only way to get line breaks for a multiline plain-text field showed in a DFWP?

Display column titles in custom list forms

SharePoint never really caeses to surprise me, especially when I happen to find out some hidden gems I didn't know existed. This time the hidden treasure is called FieldProperty.
Citing the MSDN, the <SharePoint:FieldProperty> control is a FormComponent control that lives under the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls namespace and represents a property of a field, that is a column, on a list.
The value of this little control may not be immediately apparent, but I think you will appreciate its usefulness once I'll have showed you the role it plays in a very common scenario like the one described below.