"However, by the time HTML5 is released it's a certainty that the new tags will enhance the search engines' understanding of page content." This is exactly the

"However, by the time HTML5 is released it's a certainty that the new tags will enhance the search engines' understanding of page content." This is exactly the point -- these HTML5 tags are being used in production today without people realizing that search engines may not being using the new document outline model since it's a moving spec. The conclusion is to avoid using these new semantics until they are further developed to avoid an unexpected document outline.