RE: XPath to select based on attr = same attr of an a

"the former is looking up the ancestor axis for the
first hit, whereas the latter is looking down the ancestor axis for
the last hit? Is one "better" than the other in any significant way?"

This is a RDFa test case [1], and specifically xml:lang.  It's pass/fail rather than good/better, but one can surmise intermittent failure "looking up" for the first hit.

--Gannon

[1] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/RDFa/implementation-report/