Why are the spacer templates used?

[Asilouhuette]

I would like to know why the default style uses the spacer_open/close templates so much. They seem to be a major source of frustration for me.

Why not simply put everything inside of a div and and let it all inherit the parent properties?

[Dismounted]

Because the vB dev team uses code that is compatible with all browsers, not semantically correct code that is compatible with a few.