What do you mean by "resolve"? What do you mean by "a) element declaration
applies"? The attribute-based declarations apply to the element on which
they're attached and to others within that scope unless overridden. If
the draft doesn't make that clear it's a bug. Please suggest wording
which would make it more clear.
>the containing element (or the document entity) could (assuming the encoding
>is supported) just as well provide the binding. this would avoid the ambiguity.
What do you mean by "encoding"? What do you mean, in this context, by
"binding"? What ambiguity are you talking about?
>what is the argument for having an element qualify its own identifier?
What do you mean by "qualify"? What do you mean by "identifier"? I
genuinely don't understand your terminology. In particular, I completely
fail to understand the sentence above.
Now I remember why I didn't address the issues you raised on teh first
go-around: I couldn't understand them.
At this point, it is obvious that we are wasting each others' time. If
you have concerns with the current draft, you are going to have to
express them in terms comprehensible to those who authored the spec.
Hint: examples are good. -Tim