Hypertext in the Web – a History
That original 1989 proposal noted that “generality and portability … [should be] more important than … complex extra facilities” [Berners-Lee 1989]. Generality and portability were unquestionably the basis of the early success of the Web. And, in some cases, it dispensed with the complex extra facilities, including much hypertext functionality, although one hypertext feature, typed links, was included in the proposal but did not subsequently survive into the Web today
.. Its widespread adoption should be assured, not necessarily because it gives “better hypertext” but because XML is seen as the new standard for the Web, allowing vastly different document formats to be defined and exchanged, all within the Web infrastructure. This includes more sophisticated linking – adding “one-to-many” links (links that point to more than one destination)