> instead of the more sensible <script />,
You say sensible, but in html it's a syntax error.

> (the opposite is also true: <br /> should not be written as <br></br> 
> because, you guessed it right, IE cannot handle it well)

that's a syntax error in HTML as well, so why should IE handle it?
(when acting as an HTML system, which is all it claims to act as).

> This will successfully suppress the erroneous behavior of IE. 

IE has multiple places where it's behaviour could be described as
erroneous, but I haven't seen any mentioned so far in this thread.

> 
>    <div><xsl:comment>i am empty</xsl:comment></div>
><xsl:template>
>
> This will successfully suppress the erroneous behavior of IE. 


Returning the thread to XSLT, better to say this causes the XSLT to
generate valid HTML.

David

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