xtemplate: tags for {secondary_links} and {primary_links}

wouldn't it be handy to have BEGIN/END-tags for {secondary_links} and {primary_links} in the xtemplate-syntax?
i'm working on a minimalist template and i'd like to wrap primary- and secondary-links in some div-tags so i can apply a style to it. the problem is, when i switch off the links in themes -> configure -> toggle display i still have the (now empty) div-tags in the page's sourcecode. this doesn't affect the rendering of the page (at least with firefox) however i think it's unnecessary and i'm not to sure, wheter this would cause displayproblems with ms internet explorer.
and after all, isn't it unvalid xhtml to include empty tags? (also not sure about that...)