>I am focused here on the fact that, purportedly, each ASP Server Control does this (browser optimized rendering) for me without concern on my part. That is how I read the statement and my questions relate to that interpretation of the statement.

This behavoir is done in your best intrests. Perhaps there were no concrete examples in your book.

Say you drop a calendar control onto a Web Form and view it in IE6. You get this nice JScript looking thing that relies heavily on some sytle attributes. This page would not render in IE3. For example, the JScript won't work and the Sytle stuff won't work. So ASP.NET known to render the calender control without JScript (sends a hit back every time) and using Table tags in the HTML. If it did not work this way, you're Web Form could only be viewed on IE6 unless you put in all the hardwork yourself.

Anywhere there is JScript there are browser issues. For example, the same Jscript that runs great in IE may run differently in NS. So ASP.NET detects it, and outputs the approrpriate code. Why? Cause otherwise it simply would not work.

Does that answer your question?