I agree. I think that this also ties into a conversation which we had here about design philosophy and how seperating your logic and your layout is simply good design.

If a site was designed using this method, then it should be a trivial matter to change from an design based on "table-based layouts, IE and image maps" to one using, say, AJAX and CSS2.

What I was try to say was that sometimes we do have to ignore our principles, and that is a really hard moment to deal with the first time that you have to do it. I really appreciate good design especially with respect to the visual elements and the logical elements of any application, but I have had to sell-out in order to get a job done on time.

However, I think that you are right about developers neglecting special needs groups. I do not think that the majority of them do so deliberately, but do so because people at the coal face may not have had any life experiences which enable them to relate to these people on any level. The majority of web developers I have met are usually recent graduates of either uni or high school, but live, like myself, in that charmed world of middle class ignorance.
Most of these developers look at the world differently to other people, and some just can't visualise any kind of life experience outside of what they have personally experienced.

On a side note, this is why I have been most motivated and influenced by people who are empathic and/or who make deliberate life choices which put them into a different sphere of experience that what their "meat and two veg" life would ordinarily have in store for them. One particularly inspiring person has spent a significant amount of time in the very alien worlds of Japan and the Ivy League.

Keeping in mind the developers limited life experiences, it surely follows that the producers of major user agents are morally obliged to improving the compliance to standards so that all groups can enjoy the benefits of the electronic age. I imagine that they should be responsible for this in the same way that car manufacturers are responsible for passenger safety. If they was no responsibility or obligation, then our vehicles will still have steel dashboards and lap belts.

It seems that the people with the most to gain from this brave new world are the ones that are the most left out of it. I find it absolutely repulsive that Bill Gates can retire from his position in Microsoft so that he can spend more time on his philantrophic charity and leave such an obvious method of enriching the lives of many so poorly execcuted. Lets just hope that his aid projects are more complete.

What can I do about it? I think that I can take the same tack as yourself and do what I can, whenever I can to use, develop and plan for standards compliant, accessible code. I can also put my support behind the user agents that are the most standards compliant and accessible. I can also make uninformed comment on other people's blogs.