In a piece Isofarro thinks is mostly FUD, Andrew Grumet asks:
When someone claims that Atom is a better format, try to get them to explain what user-visible features Atom makes possible that are not currently possible.
It's a question that deserves an answer, if only to serve those who know what's wrong with RSS, who want to switch, but who don't really know why they should. Phil Ringnalda responds to Andrew's query with some excellent thoughts:
Features? From my perspective, the feature thing is pretty damn simple. In Atom, I know whether the title element is encoded HTML, or plain text. I can use pointy brackets in titles, without worrying about them being interpreted as HTML. In Atom, there is an element for a summary/description, and an element for content. In Atom, there is an element for the author's name, not just an element for the author's "give me more spam, please" email address. There's a date modified, to help start figuring out a way to deal with posts that change.
Sounds about right.