JQuery :: Tools Tooltip Works On Imagemap Area In FF Only?

Some history: Although I know that it is considered 'old' technology, I have built hundreds of imagemaps over 10 years for a local photographer who uses a panoramic camera (now a spectacular digital one) to photograph weddings, schools etc. I then pop an imagemap area over each face and add a title (and alt text for IE viewers) that shows up on mouseover to identify the person.

I've been using the jQuery tools library recently and tried changing this tooltip demo which turns an image's title into a tooltip from:

$(document).ready(function() {
$("#demo img[title]").tooltip('#demotip');

To:

$(document).ready(function() {
$("#demo area[title]").tooltip('#demotip');

Thus grabbing the title associated with an area rather than an image.

I just built a quick proof of concept using the image map of a family meeting on one of my sites, and viewed it in Firefox. As expected, on hovering over an area the tooltip popped up at top center of the image, with the title text in it. Wow! GREAT! I thought. ;-)

BUT...

In IE: Tooltip pops up, containing the matching title text, but far away from the clicked area and NOT at top center.

In Opera: No tooltip, browser's title box opens by mouse position, but with out title text, instead it contains the a href link that clicking in the area would go to.

In Chrome: No tooltip, no title.

In Safari: No tooltip, no title.

(BTW All tests were done in current browser versions under Win XP)

I just tried Tero's demo at [URL] in all browsers and it worked fine, in every case the tooltip appeared top center of the image, with the title text in it! So it would seem at first thought to be involved with the way browser manufacturers have built their DOM... But further reading indicates that all post v5 browsers use the same DOM model, so I'm stumped. I've Googled quite a few threads where folk have had js/DOM/imagemaps conflicts, but have found no post resolving the issue.

Since libraries such as jQuery claim to isolate us from browser variances, is it just that imagemaps are considered so 'out of date' that browser manufacturers haven't bothered to update their code to integrate them into the standard DOM? (Bravo FF, 'does it right' again!)