It's not that nobody ever thought of simplifying the DOM like that before. It's that the people who thought through it realized it was a bad idea, and the peopl

It's not that nobody ever thought of simplifying the DOM like that before. It's that the people who thought through it realized it was a bad idea, and the people who had to use APIs like E4X designed by people who didn't think through it also realized it was a bad idea. Don't blur the distinction between lists of nodes and nodes. It just moves the complexity around to where it's not expected, it doesn't eliminate it.