Recently, my status message on Facebook was I'm now convinced microformats are a stupid idea. Shortly afterwards I got a private message from Scott Beaudreau asking me to clarify my statement. On reflection, I realize that what I find stupid is when people suggest using microformats and screen scraping techiques instead of utilizing an API when the situation calls for one. For example, the social network portability proposal on the microformats wiki states

It boggles my mind to see the suggestion that applications should poll HTML pages to do data synchronization instead of utilizing an API. Instead of calling friends.get, why don't we just grab the entire friends page then parse out the handful of useful data that we actually need.

There are a number of places microformats are a good fit, especially in situations where the client application has to parse the entire HTML document anyway. Examples include using hCard to enable features like Live Clipboard or using hReview and hCalendar to help microformat search engines. However using them as a replacement for an API or an RSS feed is like using boxing gloves instead of oven mitts when baking a pie.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

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