I was messing around with <ul><li> type nav links, and had some issues with the bullet images I made were too large, so I made it as a background image for the <li> but <li> backgrounds didn't seem to work so well on IE.
My question is this, why does everyone use <ul><li> to make their nav links when you can use less code just using <a>'s within a <div>?
Here's my code example (bullet.jpg not included, it's just a 30px square I made in photoshop)
It's done for several reasons. One of these is the desire to use XHTML as semantically as possible. Marking up your content as a list communicates the grouping of your data. Another reason is out of consideration for those who experience the internet via adaptive technology like screen readers and the like. For some organizations (such as publicly funded educational institutions) these considerations are mandated by law. A good question to ask is: "If I were to view my site without CSS or images, would it still make sense?"