The problem with elements like <cite> is that they don't do anything -- since there's no default style they're just <span> with added wankery. Just because the

The problem with elements like <cite> is that they don't do anything -- since there's no default style they're just <span> with added wankery. Just because the spec exhorts you to use them a particular way doesn't mean that anyone will do that -- the real world has proven over and over again that unstyled tags are used as if they were classes, and attributes that aren't parsed by user agents from day 0 will have random shit stuffed in them. This isn't be done by ignorant users, but by aspirational Zeldman-reading cargo-cultists, almost always in the name of accessibility (see the saga of longdesc). At least the putatively 'semantic' <em> and <strong> tags have agreed-upon meanings in the real world: they're synonyms for <i> and <b> -- and noone can argue otherwise in a world where every WYSIWYG toolbar has a B button that insets <strong> tags.