I generally tend to agree. The browser is becoming a terribly fat client, and the complexity and version/brand variations create a testing nightmare and moving

I generally tend to agree. The browser is becoming a terribly fat client, and the complexity and version/brand variations create a testing nightmare and moving targets that make the DLL Hell of the 90's almost look good in comparison. To better manage the mess, perhaps break up the standards into 3 groups: 1) Art/games/entertainment, 2) Documents, and 3) CRUD/GUI for "productivity" work. We don't have a decent GUI-over-HTTP standard yet. There also needs to be more coordinate-based options in the standard(s) so that the server can optionally control the layout flow instead of the client. Letting the client do it leads to the browser/brand combinatorial mess mentioned. If you can let the server do it, then you are dealing with only ONE layout engine instead of the many micro-variations we face with fat browsers. (Current HTML has some coordinate based ability, but it's too inconsistent, especially for text.)