@Greg:
But why do we need to emphasize it?
well, i can tell why the germans need to emphasize it, it is due to the readability. a sentence is a unit of meanings and to support that you emphasize it with a capital letter at the beginning. perhabs it's the same in english
since english is a "predicative language" small letters do not restrain the readability but german as a "nominative language" has complex capitalization rules which are silly but in the eyes of linguists very important for the readability (second only to the punctuation). when you read a german text the caps stick out and somehow you understand the meaning of the text easier and quicker. when you get the capitalization wrong the meaning of the words may become wrong, too.
but in the english language (and in almost any other language too, it seems)previaled so never mind.
Have some languages had a "formal" spelling reform?
yep, and be happy that you don't have to go through tons of "formal " spelling reforms which are so goddamn pointless and complicated and aweful for everyone in the country, especially for students. i don't know what is shittier, punctuation rules, capitalization rules or compound spelling rules. i wonder what finnish and latin grammar is like when the german one is so hard already.