Vertical-align: middle is incorrectly rendered, inaccurately implemented in Internet Explorer

Actual (live) result in your browser:

vertical-align: middle x

Expected result (screen shot 360px wide, 68px tall):

References:
"middle
    align the vertical midpoint of the element (typically an image) with the baseline plus half the x-height of the parent"
CSS 1, section 5.4.4, vertical-align property

"middle
    Align the vertical midpoint of the box with the baseline of the parent box plus half the x-height of the parent."
CSS 2.1, section 10.8.1, vertical-align property

Typographical measurement systems: the x-height by Jan Roland Eriksson

NS 6.1, NS 6.2, NS 7.0, NS 7.1, NS 7.2, Firefox 1.5.x, Firefox 2.0.0.3, Firefox 3, Safari 2.0.4, Safari 3.0.4, Konqueror 3.5.5, Konqueror 4.1, Seamonkey 1.x, Seamonkey 2.x, K-meleon 1.x, Epiphany 2.14 all pass this test. Opera 9.26 and Opera 9.50 do not pass this test.

This bug has been known and reported for all versions of Internet Explorer:
"vertical-align: middle
This aligns the middle of the element's box with the baseline of the parent box, not the baseline plus half the x-height as it should. (In IE 5.5 it aligns with an arbitrary, rather than calculated middle.)"
vertical-align in IE 5.x as explained at richinstyle.com

This bug has been reported at connect's IE beta feedback as bug 365792.

Update: This bug has been FIXED in Internet Explorer 8 RC1 (build 6001.18372) released on January 26th 2009. Otherwise, Internet Explorer 8 RC1 PASSES this specific and particular testcase.