I have to add that that will only work purely because there is only a single row
in the footer, thus NO duplicates are made when rows are created.
And that is why I didn't suggest it earlier, it eluded me.
I was thinking you were trying to save data  from combo's ot textboxes within the
items template - as well as saving combo's stuff from the footer - all at the
click of save  button.

[[
This has also tought me something about FindControl() that I did not know and
must now look into.
(normally you can use any control to boot up FindControl(), since
x.FindControl("hh") and y.FindControl("hh") will find the same control "hh" as
it looks for "hh" in general ... AND NOT child controls named "hh" within x or
child controls names "hh" within y.
Here however the e.Item.FindControl(" ") is needed.
But don't quote me.
]]