Adam Bosworth has some really smart things to say about standards:

Keep the standard as simple and stupid as possible. The odds of failure are at least the square of the degrees of complexity of the standard. It may also be the square of the size of the committee writing the standard. Successful standards are generally simple and focused and easy to read

His example involves health care standards (for data), but it's a great point. Awhile back, Anil Dash made a similar argument about Google Wave, and why simpler is better:

Upgrades to the web are incremental. Instead of requiring a complete overhaul of your technical infrastructure, or radical changes to existing behaviors, the web tech that wins is usually the sort of thing that can be adopted piecemeal, integrated as needed or as a normal part of updating one's websites or applications.

I think that's right - if it's too hard to implement, then the only place it ends up being used is "in the enterprise" - where the IT managers who read way too many magazines also talk to way too many consultants - and those consultants are only too happy to nod their heads and take the lifetime contract that's billed by the hour. Out in the real world, where neither time or money is unlimited, that just doesn't fly...