Hello,
Personally I wouldn't even worry about XHTML strict until the day when we can guarantee *well-formed* output 100% of the time. Then you can start worrying about also *validating* (proper element nesting, validation of attribute values, transformation of various deprecated elements and attributes to equivalents that pass the strict DTD).
Ummm, isn't it 'fake' XHTML every time Content-type: text/html is passed? Doesn't IE fail miserably if proper content type is passed? :)
Domas