I actually understood the jQuery when I read it, it just felt slow and hard to read.  I appreciate that you experimented with a commented version: looking at that makes me think that version is probably less error-prone to change, but it's still pretty slow to read (and probably slower for people who use a lot of jQuery).  I'm willing to accept that either it's likely to become easier to read with time, or that we're likely to need a templating engine before too long.  In any case, thanks for not blocking on this and merging.