There are good reasons to separate form and content. Most programmers don't have the background in color, composition, font choice and all the other fuzzy variables that make up good design. Most people don't have the background, if the powerpoint presentations I've seen are any example.

So we create things like jsp, php and templating languages, which are supposed to leave the visual design to designers and content programming to programmers. The MVC, Model-View-Controller, pattern is supposed to isolate business logic from input and presentation, and it is widely used.

But form is content to a greater or lesser degree. The poet ee cummings has a classic example where if you take away the form, you destroy the content:

	l(a

	le
	af
	fa
	ll

	s)
	one
	l

	iness

The shape of the poem, the preponderance of ones (including the french definite article 'le', and the I-ness at the end) make a simple statement into a poem.

Separating form and content is a web site best practice; it lets the people apply their skills appropriately, but there are times, even in mundane commercial websites, where the form and content could interact to create a more compelling message.

As I've noted above, programmers are not the people to design websites, but designers already have a rudimentary knowledge of programming. Alternatives and looping are built into the way we humans think. The syntax of jsp or php are daunting, and the linear mode of expression may not be a visual person's cup of tea, but a compromise where the designer could repeat individual items of a list, or choose between alternatives either visually or with some kind of simplified syntax (dare I suggest BASIC?), might allow more flexibility for both programmer and designer.

References:

(1)Trygve Reenskaug, MVC, XEROX PARC 1978-79 http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/themes/mvc/mvc-index.html

(2)Steve Burbeck, Ph.D., Applications Programming in Smalltalk-80(TM): How to use Model-View-Controller (MVC) http://st-www.cs.illinois.edu/users/smarch/st-docs/mvc.html