It wasn't meant as harshly as you felt it was (there was a smiley there). But there is something about writing in a different colour, different font style/weight and size that doesn't say "Hey, I'm different because I'm a unique individual", it's says "Hey, I'm different because I want to feel important."
In my experience, people who use a different colour, different font style/weight and different size are very firmly saying "Look at me, what I have to say MUST be important." Not that what you're saying is or isn't important; but simply that people who format things differently almost always do so to get noticed, not because they want to demonstrate their individuality.
This is based on over a decade of visiting forums, at least.
I know I'm different.
I celebrate it.
You, me, them, everyone. We're all different. We should celebrate it. But going out of your way to celebrate it by intentionally drawing attention to yourself comes across as less of a celebration and more attention seeking.
Yes, I remember Tasman. The problem is no different to the situation we have today: even if it were adopted into IE6 at the time, we'd still have the same schism that we see today between IE6 and 7, or 7 and 8, or 8 and 9. All the time the browsers have massive shifts in how they render things, people are going to hold off adoption, which means the new features don't hold water so much.
Opera's the classic example: it is widely considered to have a better grasp of the standards in terms of behavioural reproduction thereof than any of the others, but unless it goes mainstream and encourages the others to catch up, it ain't happening.
There are, even now, still places that push IE6 compatible stuff out the door, even as we approach a full decade since IE6 landed.
