Our objective is to create a format that is sufficiently stable that it won't need a fallback solution.
SVG is incredibly consistant from machine to machine, much more so than HTML. Can you give me an example of a case where fallback would be necessary (leaving aside questions of accessibility)?
Semantic markup is an issue for search engines, but we are building websites for people to read.
Visitors to a website never see the tags. They have no idea if something is <h1> or <div> or <strong>.
Are you suggesting that semantic markup is important for people, or for Google? Is this purely an accessibility issue (I don't mean to diminish the importance, it's just a question)?
Our plan is to automatically create parallel content for accessibility requirements, including semantic information. Sort of like the <noscript> tag, an imaginary <nosvg> tag.
If you feel like I am missing the point of semantic markup, I would love to know why, (or you can just post a link).