1.choose a set of 100 documents that represent the spectrum of things we'd like to see on the Web
2.come up with a language capable of expressing the author's intent in 98 of those documents
3.come up with a language capable of expressing the designer's intent in 98 of those documents
4.add to HTML the semantics of the languages developed in the preceding two steps >>
The reason you will likely never see such a logical approach is that there are not enough multidisciplinary designers of HTML. By that I mean, the people who develop the code are not always those types who are actually familiar with the way published documents already look in paper form. (And it takes a really creative type to imagine a new type of document....one that isn't published in paper form...)
May I say, however, that your idea is extremely logical. For that reason alone, no one will probably pay any attention to it whatsover.
:-)
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