Suggestion: http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/

Dear W3C

I would like to make a suggestion regarding The Basic
Syntax<http://www.w3.org/TR/microdata/#the-basic-syntax>section of the
HTML Microdata draft.

My suggestion relates to the mark up for items containing a single property:
<span itemscope><span itemprop="name">The Castle</span></span>

There is a potential to reduce the amount of markup for single property
items.  The itemscope attribute could be placed in the same span tag as the
itemprop attribute:
<span itemscope itemprop="name">The Castle</span>

This would reduce overhead of the additional span tag declaring the item.
 It is now clear that the item contains a single property.  It also makes
the markup neater and easier to read.

As similar syntax is already used for nested items (in red), it would
complimentary to define single property items in the same way.
<div itemscope>
  <p>Name: <span itemprop="name">Amanda</span></p>
  <p>Band: <span itemprop="band" *itemscope*>
        <span itemprop="name">Jazz Band</span> (
        <span itemprop="size">12</span> players)</span></p>
</div>

Kind regards,
Brent