Geoffrey K. Pullum, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, leaves no doubt as to where he stands on Strunk and White:
The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.
The authors won't be hurt by these critical remarks. They are long dead. William Strunk was a professor of English at Cornell about a hundred years ago, and E.B. White, later the much-admired author of Charlotte's Web, took English with him in 1919, purchasing as a required text the first edition, which Strunk had published privately. After Strunk's death, White published a New Yorker article reminiscing about him and was asked by Macmillan to revise and expand Elements for commercial publication. It took off like a rocket (in 1959) and has sold millions.
This was most unfortunate for the field of English grammar, because both authors were grammatical incompetents.
Thank gawd I'm not the only one who's always believed this to be true. I've always eschewed “Elements”. It's soimething to revile; after-all, syntax,prose:… narrative, style,,, and: punctuation'sss' can't possibly be expected to live within the rules presented by Skunk and Wit's volume. Mind-numbingly dull was their prescription for the language – better to err than try to compare to the “Elements”!
A rebuttal:
http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2009/04/pullum-on-strunk-and-white.html