Who are these zealots you reference that demand semantic HTML and have some influence over CSS specs? What I more often see is people advocating for using sema

Who are these zealots you reference that demand semantic HTML and have some influence over CSS specs? What I more often see is people advocating for using semantic HTML, because it exists, and separating concerns (content & presentation). If there was a choice to use CSS properties and values that better conveyed the presentation intent (what you might call its semantic value), they would advocate for that as well.