Well, to be fair, HTML5 also already has the <meta> extension mechanism. I know you're not making the argument that one is more "standardsy" than the other; you're just pointing out that both approaches are equally "standard".

Uh, doesn't that just add an extra round trip and yet another mandatory HTTP request? No thanks, I think we've enough of those.

> Uh, doesn't that just add an extra round trip and yet another mandatory HTTP request?

No. The request only happens if you decide to "pin" the site, or otherwise give it a first-class status on your machine (one could imagine the same by pining it to the OSX dock or making a site into a "standalone app", I think there was a browser doing that a while ago)

Even worse. That gives first-class status to the "HTML version" which contains links to all of the other "versions" of a webapp.

> That gives first-class status to the "HTML version"

Erm... you make absolutely no sense here?

Of course the "HTML version" (aka hello we're talking about web pages here) is the main resource, what else would be, unicorn and ponies?