One thing to keep in mind is that screen readers are like web browsers – each “renders” the content slightly differently. So JAWS might not read title attributes, but another might. Here’s a list of major screen reader software:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screen_readers

A big revelation for me was the “header navigation”. Did you notice how efficiently Reinhard was able to get an overview of the page by jumping to each header? Since a visually impaired user needs to build a mental model of the page, using proper structure helps make that task easier. And the benefit for page authors is cleaner markup, and a better shot at proper SEO.

I enjoyed the talk tonight but found myself disagreeing a lot. I still need to think things out but you’ve inspired me to write a post of my own.