Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reaction is pretty interesting. I was doing some webdev back then, and whilst everything you said was true it was the lack of cross browser CSS and Javascript testing which led to the real frustration. Back in 2002/03 IE6 had over 90% marketshare, and justifying testing in anything else was a constant battle.
As developer back then I had the same experience but with some reflection ie 6 was the better browser in 2002 - Firefox css got better but that was more like 2005 after many years of zero development on IE6. Reflecting back to that time period the most lasting damages were active x. There are still governments and corporations that can’t migrate from IE 11 because of this legacy.
That's exactly the same situation with Chrome. It's faster than Firefox, has less CPU issues etc (and I say that as a long time Firefox user).
The mono-culture is the problem, and it's embarrassing that we've forgotten this.