[CSS3] CSS Text Level 3, 6.1: text-align: string

In CSS3 Working Draft for CSS Text, in the part about text  
alignment[1], there is a description of text-align:<string>, quoted  
below:

<string>
When applied to a table cell, specifies a character on which all cells  
in its table column that also have a character value for 'text-align'  
will align (see the section on horizontal alignment in a column for  
details and an example). When applied to any other element, it is  
treated as 'start'. The string must be a single character; otherwise  
the declaration must be ignored.


1. The section on horizontal alignment in a column that it links to  
does not have details and an example, however. It only has the sparse  
wording of "The horizontal alignment of a cell's content within a cell  
box is specified with the 'text-align' property", and links back to  
the the section in the CSS Text draft that links to it.

2. Also, I don't know if it has been brought up before or not, but  
when text-align:<string> is applied to a non-table-cell, shouldn't it  
just be ignored, instead of being treated as "start"? That seems like  
it would allow for more reasonable fallback behavior. Thus, if I class  
something to align on a decimal in a table cell, I might want it to be  
right aligned if that class was applied to something other than a  
table cell, and I could put that in the rule like this:

{ text-align:right; text-align: '.'; }

Which is what I would probably do anyway if the cell contained dollar  
amounts that usually showed two decimal places, as it would also help  
in getting the alignment to be consistent in UAs that did not yet  
support string alignment.

3. Shouldn't "When applied to a table cell" be replaced by "When  
applied to a table cell, table column, or table column group"? Is is  
it considered to be inherited from those, and thus "applied"  
indirectly? This seems like the wording in #2 (above) also comes into  
play: if I apply text-align: '.' to a TABLE element, should it be  
inherited by the TDs of that table? If it is "treated as 'start'",  
then the TDs would inherit it as 'start' also, wouldn't they?

4. Shouldn't "that also have a character value for 'text-align' will  
align" be replaced by "that also have the same <string> value for  
'text-align' will align"? After all, some cells in the column could  
align to some other character, couldn't they (if they had a different  
class, for instance)?

I propose this alternate wording:

<string>
When applied to a table cell, table column, or table column group, the  
string specifies a character on which all cells in its table column  
that also have the same <string> value for 'text-align' will align.  
When applied to any other element, it must be ignored by that element  
as if it were an unsupported value (but not by its decedent elements,  
which may still inherit the character alignment). The string must be a  
single character; otherwise the declaration must be ignored.




[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/#text-align