Nicely pulled off, but I’m going to have to agree with Veracon here. Apart from the span being a bit of a nasty, it’s also completely unnecessary in your example. There are already two elements in play – the list item and the anchor… why the need for a third one?

And also, with the corner images. I see you’ve made the right image big enough to scale for multiple sizes, so why not combine the two edges into one image and re-use it on both elements?

Perhaps I’m being a little picky here though. :)