yeah, i don't think the htmx API would be the right thing to add to HTML, it's too specific to htmx, but the idea of generalizing hypermedia controls is something i hope the browser people look at
They have, and it failed. "Hypermedia controls" are for machines, first and foremost. That's what RDF and semantic web were supposed to be about, but that never took off in any significant shape or form.