>Now the Living Standard explicitly notes that <b> isn't necessarily rendered as bold (because it might be overridden by style sheets), by this loosening the connection to typographical appearance.
This is some pretty selective reasoning by the working group considering they don't provide a warning for all other elements (not even <strong> or <em>, which can also be overridden by stylesheets). I could toss a "p { display: none !important; }" into my stylesheet, yet the <p> tag doesn't have a warning that text inside it might not be displayed. Seems like they're grasping for reasons to discourage <b> and <i>.
This is some pretty selective reasoning by the working group considering they don't provide a warning for all other elements (not even <strong> or <em>, which can also be overridden by stylesheets). I could toss a "p { display: none !important; }" into my stylesheet, yet the <p> tag doesn't have a warning that text inside it might not be displayed. Seems like they're grasping for reasons to discourage <b> and <i>.