It works. It's not clean, and it's not semantically correct. By your standards, let's eliminate 50% of computer users in the world. I'm not sure what companies you've developed for, all all the ones I do have a source of commerce - usually via the web. So those who are (and I completely f'ing agree) 'standing still' are also potential customers/clients and dictate (unfortunately) how the web advances, because they are stuck on IE. Newer isn't always better, and HTML5 is a perfect example. You have yet to articulate one positive thing about HTML5 and how <section>s are better than <div>s, and I just gave you a huge reason why they're not. And what you call "designing backwards" is what pros call graceful degradation. You should get over your pride, and see what real developers are actually doing. When HTML5 finishes out and is a final product, it's nothing to learn a few new tags. Until then, you have to go with what works on new and older technology, and if you're busy wasting time on <section> tags, you're missing the point.