Thanks, Lachlan, for the summary.

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> 
> I have finally completed my analysis of the issues surrounding the 
> separator element, and published my results.
> http://lachy.id.au/log/2005/05/separator-elements 
> 
> I've attempted to define its semantics, and propose some more suitable 
> markup constructs to achieve the same semantics.

# Usage
# Book Chapters and Topics
#
# In books, and other similar publications, such separators are often
# used to indicate a minor change in topic, scene or perspective. These
# changes, or divisions, are usually smaller than a whole chapter and,
# in fact, a chapter may contain many such divisions with each separated
# visually with some kind of rule, stars or other graphical
# representation.

Additionally, the structure of separated perspectives may not fit into 
the structure of chapters/sections etc., e.g.

<section> ... This is perspective 1 ... This is perspective 2</section>
<section>This is still perspective 2 ... This is perspective 1 
again</section>

Which is just like what I find in my bible. Division into chapters and 
verse numbering sometimes look as if done by chance :-) whereas 
paragraphs are printed according to the structure of the story. How do 
you markup this?
<chapter>
   <verse>...</verse>
   <verse>...</verse>
   <verse>...</verse>
   <paragraphBreak/>
   <verse>...</verse>
   <verse>...</verse>
</chapter>
<chapter>
   <verse>...</verse>
   <verse>...</verse>
   <paragraphBreak/>
</chapter>
?
-- 
Johannes Koch
In te domine speravi; non confundar in aeternum.
                             (Te Deum, 4th cent.)