I might've been better, in retrospect, if Mozilla and IE had been completely different. Then you could just bite the bullet and write two versions of everything, and along the way learn a clear picture of how each one operates. Instead what we're faced with is two browsers which look alike and in theory ought to work exactly alike; but in practice we have to deal with sometimes subtle differences in how the same feature works.

I've actually worked out the differences in scripting, which boil down to just a few key statements and a completely different event-handling system. But damn, the differences in CSS cause me no end of problems. That's where I often end up designing two versions of a page, because one way of laying out a page works well in IE but not in Mozilla. For example, I can use a full-page table to lay out a page in IE, but I have to use positioned DIVs with Mozilla. That was the case with the Nexus--the design took a day in IE, then recreating it in Mozilla took a week. That pattern continues to this day because each time I approach a design I have to experiment with Mozilla to find out what works--I can't seem to derive a consistent pattern for the kinks in Mozilla.

Bah! I'm conflicted: It's a good thing in principle to have an alternative to Microsoft hegemony; but I have to admit that Microsoft is doing a better job in practice, and the Mozillaheads let me down.