I don't think it would be different for any other system. Trying to make a piece of computer software that is completely responsive to big displays, small displays, touch screens, mice, etc is just a ton of work and a ton of small details you can't easily learn until you need to learn them.
yes. i don't mean to unfairly criticize the web as a platform, i just know it's warts because it's the platform i work on.
my criticism is reserved for the concept of "first principles", as if there should be a cohesive and simple set of rules that you can build up all the knowledge you need from. that's just not really how any complicated system works: building a comprehensive understanding of a complicated system takes a lot of work and a lot of time.
the "first principles" to understand it all is the complete set of mailing list archives of the WhatWG, plus the archives of the bug trackers of all the major browsers.