[wwweston]

> Not sure why the the self closing tags became widely used

For a while adhering to the open/close conventions helped use tooling / libraries built around the assumptions for XML in dealing with HTML, maybe up through the late 00s/early 10s.

Any utility gains there faded as HTML5 conventions and libraries became more solid, but I still have a bit of the habit, especially with <img/> & <br/>.