Do any of the modern browsers support any type (any type at all) of internal text formatting (so that part of a single option is formatting differentially). Different side, colour, strength, subscript, anything.
So far it seems that Chrome, at least, just deletes any tags put inside of option tags.
I am looking for something to accomplish this style of result (without having to deal with canvases):
<option value="8470621">Corey Perry <i>Anaheim Mighty Ducks</i></option>
OR
<option value="8474141"><b>Patrick Kane</b> Chicago Blackhawks</option>
There is currently no support for nested HTML tags within options. The closest formatting element you can use is <optgroup> which will group options into sections.
What you could do is use a javascript replacement like Select2 or Chosen to style the elements. It isn't native, but it does support HTML.