Should the HTML rendering engine in outlook 2010 be standards compliant? [closed]

Forgive my naive viewpoint (not being a web development expert), but wouldn't the world be a better place if ALL HTML rendering engines were Standards Compliant? Is this a hoplessly idealistic and unrealistic dream..? (if anyone thinks that this is a worthwhile question in it's own right, comment to that effect and I'll make it so).

Of course it should - it would make the job of developers having to translate annoying marketing emails much less time consuming.

But whether it will or not is up to the whim of those at Microsoft, and since they don't need to do it to sell the product, I guess it's only going to happen if one of the developers happens to spends some extra time on it.

Here's the Outlook team's opinion on it and a quote ...

There is no widely-recognized consensus in the industry about what subset of HTML is appropriate for use in e-mail for interoperability.

Personally, I like Word as the editor. I get familiar interface, ease of use and power and give up very little. Remember, they have to deliver a tool you don't need to know any HTML to use.

It's not a non-issue.

HTML compliance in email programs is one of the "hidden problems" of HTML compliance. Mass marketers often have headaches handling this because email clients tend to be older and quite a long way behind current browsers. CSS support is often spotty, for instance. This is one reason they often have links that say "If you're having trouble reading this email, follow this link to view it on our web page."