[bzbarsky]

If you made it an opt-in, that might be doable... though there would still be the danger of pages cargo-culting into the opt-in.

But at that point you're also asking browsers to maintain two separate line-wrapping codepaths, of which one is not used anywhere to a first approximation. Browser vendors seem to be somewhat resistant to doing that sort of thing.

[glhaynes]

It could maybe be switched off (even if requested) once a paragraph hits a certain threshold size. Of course I suppose that could get complicated as the paragraph gets mutated by JavaScript... you don't want to be turning it on and off all the time.