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I think Resig means to use JSLint throughout, which does something similar. Additionally, browsers already support "use strict" which is also a restricted mode. In short, plenty of people share your views on the matter (me included). The whole thesis of JavaScript: The Good Parts was basically that, and the book is one of the best on the language.

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The major difference is that JSLint as well as "the good parts" focus on a subset that can be verified statically (before running the program) while restrict mode sanitizes operator semantics that must be verified dynamically (when running the program). I like the few changes strict mode did except for one thing that breaks compatibility in an unfortunate way (this is bound to the primitive, not the boxed number). But we should take all this much further.

More important than anything I'd like us to start talking about sane subsets of JS more, and stop limiting ourselves to what one author considers "good" because quite frankly, _that_ subsets still contains a whole lot of awful stuff.

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