I use XHTML(T) 1.0 Strict when possible. This would be the best all around standard when developing web pages. It is compliant with not only desktop web browsers, but also with TV browsers, and mobile web browsers. While most of the web is still in HTML 4, this is only due to many web developers bad practice, and poor coding from many WYSIWYG(T) web editors. I have always kept good web design practice, such as defining widths, and heights with images, and keeping all code in lower case. This and other habits only made the transition from HTML to the better XHTML(T) easier for me. XHTML(T) is more powerful, but it does not allow for sloppy coding, and neglecting to code properly would ruin the page with web browsers that need to be small such as WAP 2 browsers. The advantage that many users would find with XHTML(T) is in the browser. Smaller, and more compact browsers mean that a web browser would load easier, and more efficient. In a completely XHTML(T) browser such as modern cellular phones would have to be very small in size to fit in the memory of a cellular phone. Therefore, tolerance for sloppy code that older browsers allowed can not be tolerated with such browsers. While desktop browsers such as Mozilla(T) and Opera(T) can still tolerate sloppy coding, future web browsers would only get smaller in demands as XHTML(T) become the standard that all web developers can do.
Cascading style sheets are used to control colors, and layout. All of the presentation elements of a page can be controlled with stylesheets using classes and IDs for unique styles as needed. With respects to my site, not only does stylesheets control the colors and properties here, but also when you print. If you were to print any page, the content, and little else would be printed. This would save on your resources while still allowing for the document you want to be printed. Parts such as any promotional sections, or the table of contents would simply be not shown on the print version. All of this is controlled with style sheets.
So, XHTML(T) is used as a standard, and stylesheets control the color, and layout. Now the content, including the links are all controlled with a My SQL(T) database. This one database that controls the content is over 1000 lines of code. The name of the links is also the title of the page. The description that would show in search engines would also show in title balloons of the links. Each paragraph is separated in its own cell, and placed in as appropriate with lines of Server coding. When new content needs to be added, it would be added. When obsolete content is no longer needed, it would be removed from the database. All of the sections are done and checked for spelling before it is added. A page for each entry is created. In all reality however, each page is less than 15 lines of code. The templates are stored in text files accessible on the server, but not from the site - including confidential information such as the MySQL commands.