The more things change

For the moment I am ignoring this idea of the web standards community being full of "zealots", "fascists" and other such nonsense. As an aside, though - words have meaning, language has power. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then surely we have a responsibility of choosing our words carefully?

But I am reminded by all this wasted energy on tables of similar debates now dead and buried regarding other aspects of presentational HTML, particularly font tags.

http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/archives/0111/techwhirl-0111-01096.html
http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/TechNotes/CSS.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2000OctDec/0466.html

Yes these same debates have been played out before, shift happens and they become irrelevant.

Most of the people who advocate standards strongly have been round a while, and have done it other ways, and have seen these shifts occur and an have come to realize that things change, and we must adapt to those changes.

Or we will really become redundant.