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Umm You can write a perfectly good HTML parser in about 1500 lines of code. If you regard that as complexity then I'm sorry, but we are just going to have to disagree on that.
As for the difference in browser behavior, that comes primarily from differences in the way browser render different (X)HTML elements, not from using HTML instead of XHTML. Insisting on strict XHTML instead of HTML would resolve only a few of the more minor issues with cross browser rendering. Far more important the HTML vs XHTML is proper support for the box rendering model of CSS. For example ADE has al sorts of bugs with rendering HTML that exist whether the input is HTML or perfectly valid XHTML.
Indeed XHTML vs. HTML is such a triviality that I would regard it as a non-issue. Ebook viewing software if it is going to be successful *will* accept HTML input. The only place it matters is in ebook conversion/creation software which should go the extra mile to ensure its output is as close to XHTML as possible.
And as for insisting that epub viewers only accept strict XHTML, that would have killed epub even before it got off the ground. Standards are well and good, but growth doesn't come from standards, standards come from growth. Strict adherence to standards would kill growth. At the same time it is important to try to adhere to standards *as much as possible*.
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