You missed not being able to disable them without javascript if you set the href, pretty big disadvantage to miss. I vaguely remember IE might support the disabled attribute, but it doesn't actually work properly. That might just be 6 though. I also have a feeling there are other weird side effects to not setting a href attribute on an anchor, but maybe it's just that.
This doesn't feel a very comprehensive or well researched post, especially as you didn't know about e.preventDefault() which afaik is standard practice these days, seems a fairly ballsy thing to ask bootstrap to do when you don't really seem to know much about it.
Then again I guess if you don't question these things, you never find out!
I think in situations where you want to use a "button" (in the functionality sense) that looks like a link, you probably won't need to disable it—the two styles don't really mix for the most part, though I'm sure I've seen it done somewhere.
I know what e.preventDefault() is and when and how to use it, just simply didn't think of it when trying to find solutions. It was promptly pointed out in the G+ comments, but there are still major drawbacks to that approach.
Either way, it was well past the asking Bootstrap to add this phase by the time I wrote the post.
This doesn't feel a very comprehensive or well researched post, especially as you didn't know about e.preventDefault() which afaik is standard practice these days, seems a fairly ballsy thing to ask bootstrap to do when you don't really seem to know much about it.
Then again I guess if you don't question these things, you never find out!