Modern PHP is great but it still has the same inconsistent API. I did PHP for many years and had to look up the manual all the time because functions have different conventions for arguments.
It does have a very large and inconsistent "stdlib", I agree. On the other hand, you very rarely have to look for 3rd party libs. Is node.js better because you have to trawl throgh npm for highly variable quality (and equally inconsistent) add ons (that typically pull in a spiderweb of other dependencies) ?