Hassan,
> > Can anyone help explain why Netscape chose to create its own proprietary
> > LAYERS element instead of using the existing DIV element?
>
> Uh, because the DIV element *didn't* exist then? :-)
Not so. The div element was part of the html 3.2 spec [1], which
pre-dated Netscape 4.x.
James Aylard
1. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32#div