It can, but not every browser supports SVG sadly. :( This however, works in IE8

I see. But I think it's not a preferable solution if one wants to support crippled browsers like IE <= 8. But it's an interesting proof of concept still. Some approach like Raphaël JS is probably better for such cases. Or one just needs to ignore any crippled browsers, which might not be ideal.

Surely it's relatively easy to convert SVG to, say, .jpg on the fly, though, no? </handwave>