[rablackburn]

>> You've been able to do exactly what you describe (i.e. putting "hello" squarely in the middle of a 600x600 yellow box) with CSS since its first incarnation, with e.g. the `valign` HTML attribute corresponding to the `vertical-align` CSS property on an `inline`, `inline-block` or `table-cell` box.

Notably not a `block` element like a div or p - which is what most people are going to use as a container.

[filleduchaos]

...the entire point of CSS is that you can style any element (almost) however you want, which includes changing how it's laid out by the browser.

Case in point - unlike with HTML alone where `valign` only works on table-related elements, you can set `vertical-align` with a compatible `display`/layout algorithm on a div, p, etc as you wish.