why validate?

We have always linted and/or validated our pages because I believe it 
encourages good coding habits and makes sites more search-engine friendly.  But 
we are to do a major presentation in a few days and I'm wondering if the wise 
folks hereabouts have additional reasons why validation to an accepted standard 
is important.

In particular, the situation is that the potential client already has a site 
done by a firm that used software that generated the HTML (ClarisWorks 2.0) 
which does not pass either a lint (CSE) or a validator (Spylass).  My instinct 
is that hand-written code is almost always better, but I'd like to find 
material to back that up so they don't think I'm just running the other 
company down.

TIA to anyone who can advise, or point me to a site or articles addressing this 
issue.

Robert L. Clendaniel
BayLogic Internet Marketing LLC
http://www.baylogic.com
robert(at)baylogic.com

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