[tbe]

The very first web browser had editing built in. That's why HTTP has the concept of verbs in the first place! Otherwise GET would probably be implicit. Forms and POST came later, but PUT and DELETE was part of the original idea behind the web.

I totally agree that browsers should allow editing. Even if you are not authorized to PUT the page back to the server, it would still be useful to be able to edit before you print or save the page locally.

I really have no idea why we were robbed of this capability! It was probably just laziness from the people who wrote mainstream browser and httpd implementations.