[emn13]

It's so hard to say: maybe it'd have taken a while longer. On the other hand, maybe the alternative solution would have been simpler, allowing later developments to progress more quickly. It certainly took years to clean up IE-specific html mess. Who can know if it's a net positive...

[eli]

If IE hadn't gone out and done something, we'd be stuck with cleaning up a Netscape-specific html mess.

Or are you suggesting a standards body would have come up with something elegant and widely adopted? I... doubt that.