to X or not to X

[Vicki Falkland]

hi folks,

i've had a lingering thought for a long time now .."one day, when i get
time, i'll convert the entire library site from HTML 4.01 Transitional to
XHTML 1.0".
i thought this was A Good Thing to do. i've done one page so far.

however, today i stumbled across a discussion "XHTML is invalid HTML" at
http://annevankesteren.nl/archives/2004/06/invalid-html.

one commenter suggests it would be better to move from Transitional
HTML4.01 to Strict, rather than move to XHTML. i certainly don't understand
much of what's contained in the discussion ... "application/xhtml+xml", and
character encoding (that one always leaves me staring blankly).

i'd value opinions on what would be the best way to go .. should i go to
strict, or to XHTML? or doesn't it matter so long as it validates? and what
about the one page that already XHTML .. is the bit in my meta tag that
says "text/html" wrong, and it's not XHTML afterall??

thanks,
Vicki