Ignoring that I've been a professional software developer for 26 years, a large part of that building large scale web applications (every one for the past decade+ targeting Safari as well, and before that I always ensured my teams supported alternative browsers even when various team members were moaning and whining about how much a nuisance it is), let me just focus on this-

"misguided impression that it’s a good browser"..."Simply talk to any developer"

Your experience as a developer, and you dealing with utterly trivial regressions or handicaps, has shockingly little bearing on whether it is a "good browser" or not.