Yes, valid xhtml markup is a key ingredient in being able to figure out why things don't look the way that you think they should look. It allows you to narrow what you're looking for to find bugs. This isn't to say that all errors/warning that show up in the validtors errors are worth correcting. Not only that you have a better chance of having cross browser compatibility if your site, and I'm not just talking vb sites here, is able to be validated since most modern browsers will with a great deal of accuracy render a valid site. If the site isn't valid then you're trusting that the browsers your users are using can effectively deal with whatever markup errors are there.