> and to some degree it's design (or lack thereof) reflects the trade-offs required to hit the distribution problem out of the park.

How so? The first part I agree (as pure accident and the fact is thing bundled on the browser) but JS/C share the same problem: Terrible "design", ill-suited to the task, but sadly what was bundled.

And resistance to fix them (where in the case of JS could be super-mega-easy).