Links in DocBook XML

I have been carrying on a discussion with some folks on the DocBook mailing
list regarding the use of XML and CSS, without any XSLT transformation to
XHTML.  I believe the W3C has recommendations for doing these types of
things, but I really don't know the state of the implementations.

The whole discussion is archived here:

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook/200511/msg00019.html

I am very busy right now, and really don't have time to follow up on this
topic by researching the W3C recommendation and specifications. 
Nonetheless, I believe it is very important.  My assertion is basically
that, in principle, it should be relatively easy to serve out XML documents
without transforming them to XHTML, and you can still have links which
reference other parts of the document, or other URLs external to the
document.  The document can be served in smaller sections so that the
client does not need to transfer the entire document (read book) just to
view a section of a chapter.

One of the primary objections is that links cannot be effectively supported
in XML.  Could someone please address this issue?  I really want a W3C
compliant solution as opposed to a Mozilla specific one if at all possible. 
The issue of whether the solution works with other browsers is important,
but secondary to my primary objective which is proof of concept.

-- 
STH