You're so wrong. Your comparison is flawed.

This issue is clearly relevant to many Slashdot readers. The reason to bring up is to solicit suggestions from interested readers, many of whom may have relevant experience that they may be willing to share. The legal question is very important so it must be stated. The OP did *not* ask Slashdot to *answer* that question. Not all useful information gathering related to a legal question is legal advice.

Imagine Stingdot, a forum for people with long-term medical conditions. On such a forum it would be perfectly appropriate for someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes to ask a question "Managing insulin injections" that really revolves around a concrete medical question, namely, how much insulin to inject and when. The goal of raising that subject would not be to obtain an answer to the question instead of asking a doctor, but rather, to seek comparisons with other people's cases, how they manage in practice, how critical to be of the doctor's orders, etcetera.

JavaScript is terrible. jQuery fixes it.

I think jQuery has resolved this issue magnificently. Not just datagrids, but bridging the content-presentation gap in general. HTML 5 seems a little late and you're always going to need something like jQuery on top of it anyway.

Trying to get HTML 5 adopted seems a little like trying to swim the Atlantic. I prefer sailing jQuery style, but maybe that's just me.