So, HTML5 is the Big Step Forward, I'm told. The last step forward we took that I'm aware of was the introduction of XHTML. The advantages were obvious: simplicity, strictness, the ability to use standard XML parsers and generators to work with web pages, and so on.

How strange and frustrating, then, that HTML5 rolls all that back: once again we're working with a non-standard syntax; once again, we have to deal with historical baggage and parsing complexity; once again we can't use our standard XML libraries, parsers, generators, or transformers; and all the advantages introduced by XML (extensibility, namespaces, standardization, and so on), that the W3C spent a decade pushing for good reasons, are lost.

Fine, we have XHTML5, but it seems like it has not gained popularity like the HTML5 encoding has. See this SO question, for example. Even the HTML5 specification says that HTML5, not XHTML5, "is the format suggested for most authors."

Do I have my facts wrong? Otherwise, why am I the only one that feels this way? Why are people choosing HTML5 over XHTML5?