[WillusFredus]

> the idea persists to this day despite its near complete failure to pay off significantly in nearly twenty years

I am not clear on exactly what "the idea" refers to, perhaps you could clarify. Also, how has the idea "completely failed"? And what would complete success look like?

[jerf]

The idea is the "semantic web". Success would look like almost everyone here having to know a lot more about the "semantic web" to do their jobs, such that I wouldn't have to explain to anyone what it was because it would just be how things worked, because it would be that important, and they couldn't operate without it because they wouldn't be able to compete against other websites without the staggering benefits that super-careful, expert semantic design brings them. Rather than just learning the layout and adding a few extra accessibility tags as needed.

As it stands now, it's very practical to just slap some <div>s down and do some CSS and be done.