Actually I parse the TXT version! ...does this make me crazy!
At the time it actually seemed like the HTML versions would present more problems than less. Yes chapters and paragraph were already done, but there's often a lot variations in other aspects. I don't believe this would have made things any easier. Plus there was potential for messy mark-up...I really wanted to keep things ultra clean.
Whether that was the right decision or not, I won't change things now.