with e.g. the footer of my page, I have all the column, row and paragraph classes the same on a number of pages - they would be because I duplicated the pages, but if I now make a text change on the homepage, it doesn't alter the text in any of the other pages. Is there a quicker way to do this than change each page separately?

In Responsive Foundation Framer and Responsive Bootstrap Builder there is a facility called Symbols (as described here) which does allow one to make changes to selected items on all pages at once. It isn't yet in Responsive Site Designer, but I hope it will be in the next version (see these posts)

I therefore think the answer must be 'No', but the job doesn't, of course, mean having to change the text by editing it on each page. One can, instead, do it by cutting and pasting of whole elements. I have sometimes done it by cutting and pasting a whole row or column, and using the Inspector panel. I use Windows, and the procedure becomes -

(1) I select in the Inspector panel the row, column or other element to be copied, and press Ctrl+c to copy.
(2) I go to another page and select that row, column or other element in the Inspector panel and
(a) press Delete
(b) press Ctrl+v to paste.
(3) I repeat step (2) until the job is completed.

Frank