  We describe the extent to which Ionel-Parker's proposed refinement of the
standard relative Gromov-Witten invariants sharpens the usual symplectic sum
formula. The key product operation on the target spaces for the refined
invariants is specified in terms of abelian covers of symplectic divisors,
making it suitable for studying from a topological perspective. We give several
qualitative applications of this refinement, which include vanishing results
for Gromov-Witten invariants.
