title: Uri class is very brittle and seems to throw exceptions excessively
body: <p>I'm writing a Web spider and noticed that the <code>Uri</code> class is incredibly brittle.</p>
  
  <p>A lot of anchor <code>href</code> attributes contain stuff like <code>'/'</code>, but the <code>Uri</code> class chokes on a lot of is. For example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Uri uri = new Uri("/");
  </code></pre>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Invalid URI: The format of the URI could not be determined.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Obviously, I'd prefer my code to be robust. In cases where the <code>href</code> value is a partial path, I'm using the <code>Uri</code> class to make it absolute. But that won't work if it's choking.</p>
  
  <p>Has anyone else dealt with this. Is there a way to make the <code>Uri</code> class a little more reliable?</p>