No, this hasn’t been tried yet, because there is no need and it’s still in it’s baby shoes.
Limitations would be no cross-browser support.
No oppurtunities, unless offcourse IE suddenly desides to fully support HTML5.
HTML5 is made to make markup more easy and more readable, therefore your actually use tags that fits it’s content. For example <header> for the header.
We do that now of course too… but our selection of elements is limited.
Xevo, to your point, HTML5 is actually more cross-browser friendly than you think:
http://ejohn.org/blog/html5-doctype/
It’s true that some browsers (ahem, IE) are not fitted for this, but I’ve stopped supporting IE6 on a personal level, and IE7 has a shiv that fixes that. http://remysharp.com/2009/01/07/html5-enabling-script/ It’s true there are still problems with that (javascript turned off for example), http://remysharp.com/2009/01/07/html5-enabling-script/ but that shouldn’t stop some of the more adventurous. (Google’s home search page is now written with the HTML5 doctype — is that non-standard?)
On a personal level, I’ve decided the benefits outweigh the risks, so I’ve decided to start converting my site. I’ll check back in from time to time and tell everyone how it goes.
http://socialmedia.net/content.php?117-matt
Matt says that he believes HTML5 will be the next wave of revolution for the web: it won’t be Web 3.0 or the semantic blah blah. It’s going to be about broadband, and HTML5 will allow us to provide full interactive applications right there in your browser that will load up in seconds. He says that he is counting the days to when they can drop support for IE8 and just support HTML5.
http://socialmedia.net/content.php?117-matt
Glad to see it getting the respect it deserves from the prez.
IE6 is still used by a majority of people, so in most cases it still needs to be supported. Especially in a business environment.
And just because IE8 is starting to work on becoming a better browser, doesn’t mean its there yet. IE9 is probably gonna be a total waste of time as well.
Using javascript for a theming problem is not a good solution.
Not sure where you read that Google search engine is using HTML5. 
@Xevo IE6 is only used by 10% of folks http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
I can’t stand any version of IE myself 
yep, 10% IE6 is about all I’m getting on all my personal sites, so I stopped going out of the way to cater for it. so, time to start pushing the envelope a little bit maybe? as of yet, i’m still undecided, so for now i’ll stay put…
10% (it might be less) makes not a majority. Actually, I’m kind of tired of the whole support ’em argument. Again, it’s a personal decision, but I’m done with IE6. Finis. End. Finale. Time to move on to more interesting things. I can see a need for it in some segments of consumerism, but I’m not in that market for the most part.
Actually, in a sense, I’m done with IE altogether, because the types of applications and platforms that interest me necessitate some rather advanced things, such as HTML5. That goes for JavaScript as well. Need it for my interests. Not interested in people who want to turn it off. (Though I do understand the accessibility argument on that front.)
Also: Google: look under the hood. It’s there. No need to read about it. Declared HTML5 doctype reads: <!doctype html> (Of course, their search engine homepage has other problems, imho, but who am I to critique The Goog.)
I am into HTML5 as well. However, definitely can’t discount the IE user crowd (which is larger than others seem to think), play elitist and leave them off the markup grid. The w3c stats page only reflects those who visit w3schools – those who are more technically progressive and therefore use FireFox, Safari, etc. Sales of PC’s of all brands and sizes is still overwhelming larger than Mac et al, and then only a minority of PC users download and add Firefox or any other browser. That’s life.
