> Excellent answer, I couldn't have hoped for more.

> With the *current* use of the class attribute (basically, 95% of the cases,
> for styling, and nothing else), your answer was simply perfect.

I don't think you did understand.  class should almost never be used for
styling; it should be used for meaning.  The style sheet should then
associate styling with that meaning.

The problem is that most commercial (and vanity page) authors don't care
about meaning, and so will write:

<span class="redbold"> ...</span>  

(very few would use class="red bold", because they don't know they can)

rather than 

<strong class="dangerous">...</strong>

For the vast majority of authors, a meaning attribute will never be used,
and those who use it would have probably used class properly.