You just said they help the presentation differences of these controls, so they solve some of this, even though they bring a different set of problems. The JS

You just said they help the presentation differences of these controls, so they solve some of this, even though they bring a different set of problems. The JS API isn't that bad as everyone makes it out to be, especially since Microsoft is getting more standards compliant. And where it is bad, we see things like jQuery spring up, that solve more than the original problem (perhaps too much, but that's easier to fix than the browser differences). Perhaps you might define "proper" and provide any compelling examples how the current APIs aren't up to snuff, besides not being able to programmatically select text in a number element and unused checked properties. I'm curious.