[anthonyb]

Web development is somewhat different these days. OldIE support is being gradually dropped, primarily due to schedule and/or financial pressure or just web developers being more transparent about costs (eg. "IE6-7 support and testing will be an extra $X, and take an additional two-three weeks")

Most IE6 users that I've spoken to are accustomed to sites looking bad anyway, since most places do only cursory testing on old browsers.

[lifeguard]

At 'dot com' start-ups the matrix effect is a significant factor in engineering time/friction and causes gotchas for the users.

For consulting and enterprise work I agree, it is just "extra $X".