I think we can all agree that HTML is fairly basic in syntax, it can do some pretty nifty things which is relevant (i still think the <marquee> tag is really handy). But it's flexibility is suddenly dwarfed by other languages such as:

• XHTML
• XML
• PHP / MySQL
• ASP
• JavaScript

Is there anything that HTML can do, or any way that it can transform to compete on any kind of level with the other languages?

Personally, I think not. But I'm a pessimist.