HTML/XHTML: a:name vs. a:id?

One more html output question.

I noticed from this interesting 2008 thread
http://markmail.org/thread/cjim4rjktqj7exkg#query:+page:1+mid:rjqihxd5sgoiuvi3+state:results

that html uses <a name => while xhtml output uses <a id /> and that an
 empty <a id="" /> tag (without a separate closing tag)  can cause
rendering problems in all the major browsers (especially with regard
to the a:hover pseudoclass).

From that 2008 thread I gathered that 1)xhtml output is l full of such
gotchas and 2)there didn't seem to be a compelling reason to replace
name with id in the HTML docbook xsl.

Two years later, how does that assessment sound? In HTML 5,  <a name
is deprecated (still) but supported at least. Could a case be made for
switching from <a name="test"></a> to <a id="test"></a>?

(I find it odd that in 2010 the browsers don't render XHTML code with
<a id="test /> correctly).

-- 
Robert Nagle
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713 893 3424
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