Ok. So basically there is no easy way to link everything together and only update one link which in turn will update the other 40.

If the links are broken it all goes to plain text and I would not only have to update all of the links but reformat everything as well. Way easier just to do it by hand.

It seems like Microsoft would include a Name Manger within word as it does in Excel that would allow you to create names for certain ranges that are linked to a single file. Therefore all you would need to do is update one file and all the links would be updated automatically.