> 
> Any input from this gang of heretical DOM-haters?
 

Take the poor ol' thing to the vet and put it out of its misery?
 
Seriously, DOM-the-standard's only reason to live these days is to make portable browser -- oops, sorry "Web 2.0" -- apps easier to build, right?  E4X seems like the way forward there, not DOM.  What am I missing here?  
This guy http://ecmanaut.blogspot.com/2006/03/e4x-and-dom.html seems to agree.
 
DOM really is a de facto standard, and people who have built working systems on it aren't going to rip them up to support E4X or JDOM or XLinq.  But they're not likely to rip them up to support a DOM Reloaded either, unless their vendors force them to at bayonet point.  [I know one vendor who won't be doing that :-) ] The kindest thing you could do for its users is to not muck with the Recommendation, except maybe to clarify it  *if* the major implementers you care about are at the table  and are committed to implementing the clarifications.  
 
All my personal opinion, not the empire's, blah blah blah.