[Sir_Substance]

>How much of nginx's growth is, do you think, due to it being "better" than Apache httpd

If I were to take a guess based on my own experience, I'd say hobbyists and teenage experimenters are increasingly using nginx over apache because nginx configs are considerably easier to understand.

Over time, that is slowly translating to increased use in production environments as these people move into the workforce and apply their skills to production grade services.