Website gurus (Long, with code, beware!)

[Leshy]

No. Most browsers use standards mode for most (not all) 'strict' doctypes, but use quirks mode for most (not all) 'transitional' doctypes.

Not really. The only browser which triggers Quirks mode on a Transitional document with URL is Mozilla/Firefox, on HTML 4.00. The presence of a URL is in fact the deciding factor in most cases.

Granted, it's not very pretty as you can see here, but generally using a full doctype switches all browsers into the same mode, or at least very similar ones.

For example, IE uses quirks mode for some doctypes where other browsers use standards mode (e.g. certain - perfectly valid! - XML doctypes).

This is a known bug in MSIE - it is caused by having any form of content before the DTD, such as a comment or an XML prolog. Removing it will also trigger Standards mode in MSIE6.

And so on, and so on... there are alot of inconsistencies.

That, I will grant you. However, for the most relevant document types, being HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0, the behaviour across browsers is fairly consistent. Having a full DTD with URL is the best choice for predicting how browsers will render your code.

As much as DTD sniffing is annoying, yes. Another nice piece of MS legacy :rolleyes:

Unfortunately, there are still some situations where you have to use tables for your layout.

Only if you design your page graphically and demand to make everything fit and look exactly the same across all browsers. Which is, imho, the wrong design approach :)

Although I'll fully grant that tables are an easier solution when you're having issues with vertical positioning.