My main issue was the lack of control on the look of select dropdown, especially with IE if an option width is wider than the select initial width. Firefox deals with that issue by automatically increasing the list but unfortunately IE cuts off the text.
I’ve been using the Mootools Javascript library to automatically hide the select tag and build list on the fly.
The good thing with that method is that you can style your list, wrap text, define headers, add smooth transitions without compromising accessibility.
You can get an idea on how to implement it by looking at the Fancy Form Class or the elSelect script.
