> I don't think this really explains why <fig> must break paragraphs. My
> notion of "displayed formulas" and other things that are typically
> called "figures" is that they may fall within a paragraph.
>
> Is there a good reason why <fig> can't be changed?
I would guess that <FIG> is not allowed in paragraphs for
the same reason that <OL>, <DL>, <TABLE>, <PRE>, and other
displayed elements are not; it's mostly due to the way that
the DTD is structured. By convention, paragraphs cannot
contain any other block-level elements; making a special
case for <FIG> would be inconsistent.
I have a fairly good idea of how to restructure the DTD
so that all of these constructs are allowed, but it's a rather
significant change and it could have serious implications,
especially for browsers which implement stylesheets.
--Joe English