> But several people felt that
> <test/> meant "this element type is declared as EMPTY, so it can never
> have an end-tag"
> whereas
> <test></test> meant "this element is declared with potential content of
> some kind, but for whatever reason on this occasion it has none".
>

As an aside here, I wonder if this preference has been influenced at all by
the sentence from the Recommendation: "For interoperability [with SGML
processors], the empty-element tag should be used, and should only be used,
for elements which are declared EMPTY." [1]

Andrew

[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#dt-empty