[mr_toad]

> But if you are in the habit of using custom elements then you will likely continue to use them even when a more useful element is available

You could say the same about divs. I’ve seen pages where everything is a div. No paragraphs, no headings, no tables, no lists, just divs.

[novemp]

I've seen <span class=italics>, and it made me want to break things.

[kevincox]

That is a strawman. I never said everyone who uses classes perfectly uses semantic elements.

My point is that if you are using <div class=my-element> you don't have to change your .my-element CSS selector or JS selection code to improve your code to <p class=my-element>. If you are using <my-element> it is much more work to change your selectors and now you have two ways of doing things depending on if you are using a native semantic element or a div (either a tag selector or class selector). You have made your styling code depend on your element choice which makes it harder to change.