> I will keep using XSLT, and in fact will look for new opportunities to rely on it.
This is the closest I’ve seen, but it’s not an explanation of why it was important before the deprecation. It’s a declaration that they’re using it as an act of rebellion.
I made a website to promote doing using XSLT for RSS/Atom feeds. Look at the before/after screenshots: which one will scare off a non-techie user?
I wouldn’t spend 5 minutes making that feed look pretty for browser users because no one will ever see it. I don’t know who these mythical visitors are who 1) know what RSS is and 2) want to look at it in Chrome or Safari or Firefox.
Think about it from a non-technical user's perspective: they click on a RSS link and get a wall of XML text. What are they going to do? Back button and move on. How are they ever going to get introduced to RSS and feed readers and such like?
I think a lot of feeds never get hit by a browser because there isn't a hyperlink to them. For example: HN has feeds, but no link in the HTML body, so I'm pretty confident they don't get browser hits. And no one who doesn't already know about feeds will ever use them.
What about people who don't "1) Know what RSS is"???
And what if you could make it friendly for them in 4 minutes? You could by dropping in a XSLT file and adding a single line to the XML file. I bet you could do it in 3 minutes.