I'm saying:
(1) at least one of the proposed names, ¢ isn't supported by
Netscape 1.0N (just now tested it). I doubt it's supported by _any_
browser in existence, perhaps excepting the SGML browsers like
Panorama. Putting this list in the HTML 2.0 spec would require
changes (albeit small ones) in existing user agents.
(2) all the entity names in the current html 2.0 DTD are supported by
all the widely deployed browsers. (I used to test this with netscape
and NCSA Mosaic and a few others on a regular basis. I believe other
folks have tested the old ISOLatin1.html against lots of other
browsers. And the lack of any complaints on this matter from the
10,000 folks that used the HTML validation service has got to count
for something.)
(3) the current list of entity names has not changed since it was
first published as an internet draft in June of 1993.
(4) this list was supported in mid-1994 by NCSA Mosaic 2.4, upon which
almost all subsequent browser development has rested (at least from
the point of view of interoperability).
Dan