HTML, XHTML, or does anyone care

I spend quite a bit of time on web forums and one of the discussions that tends to come up is whether sites should be done in HTML or XHTML.  If you hit the right board it can be almost as much fun to watch as a Canon vs. Nikon discussion. 

Since the group here seems to be fairly knowledgeable on web design, but most aren't actively developing sites other than their own, I'd like to ask a question to y'all. 

Does it matter?  Do you care whether your web design validates to XHTML 1.1 strict?  Or is all that matters how it looks? 

To me it seems like it's a discussion similar to ones we have here about gear, techniques, etc, that most of our photography clients won't care about.  They care about the final image. 

Same here.  I don't think I know enough about XHTML to really have a discussion.  The little I do know about it, it wouldn't do anything to be that advantageous to me, so I think I'll stick with what I have been doing.  I am very limited about web design as well, however, so there may be great advantages of one over the other.

Can you give us some specifics?  Is there certain 'features' that one includes that the other doesn't?  Sometimes, circumstances can change an opinion.  I am usually not one to feel that there is one 'perfect' way on most things as a whole; but that there may be one 'best' way on a particular thing/need.  Just like Canon vs. Nikon... I think Canon has a hold on certain functions and needs for certain types of photography and Nikon is better at other things.  If my needs were exclusively landscape and huge prints, I would have gone to Canon a long time ago for their full-frame sensors, something Nikon has just recently started offering.  So, I guess it would depend on more factors than I feel I could discuss intelligently without more information/knowledge of the particular question.

Travis

Does forcing it to close make it more reliable?  Or is it considered a 'stronger' code because of it?

I just write my code in a hodge podge manner, a little of this a little of that.  I have all the simple stuff memorized - font, colors, links, images, tables, and for anything else more complex I google it, there are tons of tutorials and text writers out there that aren't bad.

My dad (a brilliantly smart engineer) always says "It doesn't matter if you know everything, as long as you know where to find the information".  My dad would say that about my grades, he could care less if I got a D-.

Edit:  By text writer I meant code writers.