How much time it saves code generators?

My question seems easy but is little more theoretical than it looks. There are Code Generation software or application building software that gets done without the use of a programming language. Application like VE Server and VE Designer from Intelliun should accomplish this task. My question is, in reality have someone out there track the amount of real savings of this kind of tool versus having a development team and a source code evolutionary process.

For the specific example of VE Designer the application gets done from the designer and you don’t see code for it, you just run the app in VE Server. All code looks like XML Internal commands.

Code freeze in SVN – Build management

Is there a better way to implement code freeze in SVN than asking all developers to not check in any new code?
We have CruiseControl running, which automatically deploys the latest build to environment. So if new code comes in, the build that was made available earlier changes to the latest one. I want that the build that is deployed is the one from a particular branch/tag, so that any new code check-ins dont affect the deployed build. Only when i tag/branch next time, the new code should be again deployed.
How can we achieve this?