I wanted to start a new thread on this to see what others thought.  Basically, I would love to see cleaner markup output by DotNetNuke.  The functionality and architecture is fabulous, but I think the interface and markup produced by much of the core and some supporting modules is terrible.  Unfortunately, this is all that many people see of your site it is essential.  I am particularly thinking of:

• Using tables for structure
• Inserting default inline styles - this makes developing a clean custom skin much more difficult.  For example, defaulting colors and widths which can have very negative effects on a custom skin.
  
• Extraneous tags being inserted, for example the links module inserts a span inside of the anchor tag instead of just applying a style to the anchor.  Thus, is you set a global anchor tag property, it will not work.

These are just a few examples.  I have successfully developed a number of sites using DNN and would even be interested in helping out if I can get involved.  I think the goal should be light weight, standard compliant XHTML output which can be customized using a style sheet.  What do others think?

I 1000% agree with you on the overuse of tables and inline styles. Unfortunately, this problem goes a long way. First and foremost, the "if it ain't broke..." mentality is there. I can't blame anyone for that, but it's an issue as far as upgrading. As components are updated, they should be reworked, but that doesn't always happen either. Everyone works with whatever time they can allot for DNN. Remember that we're a volunteer force. Beyond that, education is another large issue. Unfortunately, most .NET developers develop to IE as opposed to standards. From what I've seen, some might try to standardize layouts, but will often revert back to the "IE way" because of too many issues in getting it setup. I can't blame them for this - I've given up before, too. Yet another problem is .NET 1.1. Unfortunately, the span issue is related to .NET controls - that's just how they work. This can definitely be circumvented in a number of ways, but most people just use the default controls, unfortunately.

These three main reasons are just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. I suggest you submit fixes to any problems into the issue tracker. Create a new issue for every item that should be changed - this will make it easier to mark them as complete. If we log these as we find them, then it's more likely that they'll be fixed.

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Michael Flanakin | Microsoft Consulting Services
www.michaelflanakin.com