On a similar note, i think this Bret Victor quote captures the frustration of the CSS experience very well:
"CSS, a language for specifying visual appearance on the web, is … so complex that it has never been implemented correctly; yet, successive versions specify even more complexity. At the same time, it is so underpowered that many elementary graphic designs are impossible or prohibitively difficult, and context-sensitivity (or anything computational) must be addressed externally. Most CSS lore is dedicated to describing the tangles of brittle hacks needed to circumvent incompatibilities or approximate a desired appearance."
"CSS, a language for specifying visual appearance on the web, is … so complex that it has never been implemented correctly; yet, successive versions specify even more complexity. At the same time, it is so underpowered that many elementary graphic designs are impossible or prohibitively difficult, and context-sensitivity (or anything computational) must be addressed externally. Most CSS lore is dedicated to describing the tangles of brittle hacks needed to circumvent incompatibilities or approximate a desired appearance."
http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/#p255