base unsupported in XHTML 1.1

According to
http://w3c1.inria.fr/TR/xhtml11/changes.html#a_changes
the element 'base' will be unsupported in XHMTL 1.1. How comes? Isn't
it good for making the links work when one file is read out of
context, or will there be any other mecanisms? Does 'base' has any
drawbacks?

-- 
Christian Ottosson
http://www.sbc.su.se/~christian/