astupidname - 8:48 pm on Oct 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

I think I can explain. :)

Ahhh, I see, had not thought of it that way. Very well put Fotiman, it took me a bit to rethink it along the lines you are saying and now I'm sure I understand.
The root core of what you are saying is that Internet Explorer (inventors of innerHTML) are the only ones who know well enough that when you ADD to innerHTML you want the other elements in the existing innerHTML to be preserved in their current state IN THE DOM, whereas other browsers must completely re-evaluate the parents innerHMTL as a string and do not preserve state of pre-existing child elements, so any custom DOM properties get lost that way. Got it, that is absolutely the core of the problem -darned Internet Explorer is the only one that gets it right (they should, right? It's theirs!), how dare these other browsers wreck the existing elements. I guess I think of it as when I say += I mean just please lightly, gently tack on to the end of and please don't touch or even look at the beginning, darnit, and that is what IE does, but others re-evaluate the whole innerHTML string, getting their sticky fingers into the beginning and everywhere and thereby messing things up.