In order to put data into the output format you have to have some form of tag soup because that's the only way to put information and display logic into HTML.

In order to put data into the output format you have to have some form of tag soup because that's the only way to put information and display logic into HTML. The question in my mind is more, are you a developer or web sites or a developer of tools. Something like .net components or JSP taglibs allows the developer to off load data/widget to a tool developer by just calling a widget. The two problems I see with that a) historically the people building a lot of those widgets produced markup that _sucked_ b) it's kinda inflexible