> But what use would the citetype="..." attribute have? There are some

To tell a browser, accessing the document over a transport (e.g. local
file system) that didn't support content type meta data, the content type,
even though the cited document might not have the right file extension
for the local platform, or the local platform might use files that had
type meta data outside of the name itself.

> content model of <blockquote>. But if <cite> is used for this purpose,
> then the legacy <cite> element probably needs to be renamed, since legacy
> <cite> can be used freely for things like book titles, without implying
> that the books are quoted.

To me cite elements are not about quotes but about title and names; as
I see it they were introduced to cover a common use of italics.