If HTML could preform all the functions of Flash..we would not need to use Flash.. but currently it does not!
So Flash represents a direction that the mainstream wants the web to work towards. In return you get technologies that appear in web standards such as, Style Sheets, DHTML, SMIL, SVG, etc...
This allows us true web developers that want to only use HTML standards a way of using simmillar functions as flash on our sites with-out depending on a third party plug-in.
But the sad fact is.. there are more people with the flash plugin then people with browsers that support the new HTML standards. :mrgreen: