I have less confidence in standards bodies peopled by experts than you do, I'm afraid. I've had to implement real-world applications despite them. (In some cases the real-world implementations that work - meaning real people find them easy enough to use that they can get real work done - end up forming the second wave of standards. Some of that is going on in healthcare right now.) But if someone could take some of the existing html files, and convert them into some form (like TEI or RST) that generates demonstrably acceptable epub as well as not-too-degraded html (I think it's reasonably possible that the html would be better too), and could present that to DP (possibly with an expression of appreciation and regard for the work they do), we might have a way forward. What's to be considered is how automated the conversion can be. Lee, is that similar to what you were expecting to do, or could do?