Why do we have an image element?
But none of this answers the original question: why do we have an
<img>element? Why not an<icon>element? Or an<include>;element? Why not a hyperlink with an include attribute, or some combination of rel values? Why an<img>element? Quite simply, because Marc Andreessen shipped one, and shipping code wins.
It’s a hugely important point that seems to be rather lost among peer coding and reviews and architecture diagrams and forward-thinking generic frameworks that could some day save us a world of hurt because we might maybe sort of kinda do this maybe thing that might maybe be a problem later… but certainly isn’t now.

Smoke and Mirrors
A friend of mine said this:
Great idea. Though it reminded me of that lift problem, except in reverse.
If people no longer sit on a call waiting line and instead wait for someone to respond, will it feel like it takes longer? Or more accurately, will it feel like the people you are attempting to reach are putting less effort into calling you?
Just a thought…
(Yes, I moved to LA. I should talk about that at some point…)