I agree that the DTD issue is a nuisance but it's a nuisance that can be solved in a few hours. XHTML has not solved all parsing problems but the quality of parsing results is infinitely better than it used to be a few years back because most websites do actually use well-formed XML (at least most of the ones I'm parsing).
I don't understand why we need yet another slightly incompatible pointy bracket syntax. Adding that syntax to all languages and ironing out all the quirks will take years and it won't replace the existing mess. It will just add to it. I see no progress at all. It's a pointless waste of resources.
I'd say that being able to parse XHTML isn't any easier than parsing HTML in that both requires an author who writes strict code. There's HTML strict, too, ya know.
I don't understand why we need yet another slightly incompatible pointy bracket syntax. Adding that syntax to all languages and ironing out all the quirks will take years and it won't replace the existing mess. It will just add to it. I see no progress at all. It's a pointless waste of resources.