poppyrich - 7:22 pm on Jan 22, 2009 (gmt 0)

Does the CENTER tag give an error when you validate?
If so, then to hell with validation.
It's not a mistake, it's a choice.

In a recent survey, less than 5% of sites were in any way standards compliant.

To borrow a phrase from the study of law - there are two standards at work here. One is the "common standard" which is the way web pages are actually written by real people in the real world.
The other one is the "legislated standard" of the W3C.

How many Google pages validate? I would guess nearly none.

When you buy a book, has the typesetting been "validated"?
Of course not, it's absurd. It either looks good, or it doesn't.
You judge the book by it's contents, the words within it, which is what you paid your money for in the first place.

At any site I see those little W3C badges proclaiming that the page is valid, I'm really turned off by it.

Juvenile, if you ask me.