It is not democratic. Democracies at least involve periodic check-ins with everyone who is affected.
The W3C isn't a town hall, it's more like the UN. At best they prevent the web from going back to the chaos of the mid-90s.
I wonder if this is a result of a broken committee process that should have had a benevolent dictator in charge of it instead.
> ... should have had a benevolent dictator in charge of it instead.
Like Guido Van Rossum in the Python world (with the title "Benevolent Dictator For Life"), who seems (so far) to manage his power well. But I think this is a rare exception to a well-known rule about arbitrary power.
Yes, but if someone managed to create a logical, concise Web publishing standard that was something other than a can of worms, it would be a proprietary system, most likely patented. Which means no one would voluntarily adopt it.
The advantage of a public, open-source, no-one-in-charge system like we have now is that it's collaborative, democratic, and free. That's also its disadvantage.
For a classic counterexample, look at Apple's products -- they create much more consistent and usable products than the rest of the marketplace. But as many have said, Apple is a walled garden. If an Apple product happens to do what you want with no changes, then fine, otherwise you're out of luck.
Freedom is messy. Democratic technology seems always to veer toward chaos.