<a href='URL' target='_blank'>xyz</a> will link to a new window. is there a similar target to link to a new tab, in ie7?

Hopefully not. There isn't with Opera and FF anyway. Exactly how a "new window" is treated should is the user's choice. Other tabbed browsers have settings to control if the page should open in a new window or a new tab. I assume IE7 is the same, but don't really know.

You also have to think about people like me. I hate tabs in a browser as much as I love them in a text editor and disable tabs/layers right off.

I use "target=_new". Never had any complaints.

FWIW, according to HTML 4.01, except for the reserved names "_blank", "_self", "_parent", and "_top", user agents should ignore frame target names that do not begin with an alphabetic character.

Browsers may ignore target="_new", or they may treat it as a synonym for target="_blank" (opening a new, unnamed window), or they may open a new window named "_new".

And of course, browser settings can override all of this.