- Google prefers it so it is good for SEO.
- It makes your web page more likely to work in browsers you haven’t tested.
- It allows you to generate or use your page as an XML document.
- It makes you look more professional (to some developers at least)
- Compliant browsers can render XHTML faster than HTML in quirks mode.
- It points out a bunch of obscure bugs you’ve probably missed that affect things you probably haven’t tested e.g. the codepage or language set of the page.