Elias Torres: I like how Randy and Tim are setting up the discussion. I tend to agree with both: we need to have order (be strict) for "dumb" tools to understand and we need to be as simple as possible for users to publish feeds. But, IF in fact this is a cost-benefit discussion, I would say that the users would benefit the most (especially since there are more of them) if we don't impose order. The number of definitive Atom libraries will be much smaller and good programmers write those, every other developer can just use them. Now, if a developer chooses to start from scratch, I think by using XML we have already given them a starting point, plus a XML Schema with choice groups. Lastly, all they would have to do is code up cardinality and their personal tweaks to their library.
Randy: Hyperlinks to context were added by myself.
