If the "close tags" thing hadn't been fixed, can you imagine the havock that trolls could have caused?
I don't have to. I was here when they used to blank out entire threads with clever HTML tags. We used to have to put about 20 or thirty </font> or </span> tags in each post to turn off whatever they had done.
It was wild and wolly back then, and kinda' fun. But the new focus software is much better for serious conversation.