> How is the modern JS control of DOM elements styled with CSS not the same as ActionScript and Flash sprites.
Because DOM is not sprites. Because everything in DOM is laid out with relation to each other, and as you as much as look at it funny, it will cause a full re-paint and re-flow of the entire page. Because animations are bolted on to CSS/DOM after the fact, and the vast majority them are insanely resource-intensive
if you're trying to emulate a Flash element, why would you use CSS relative positioning and not define the position:absolute, at least for the element being used as the stage. That would turn any of the child elements much more sprite-like