I think the point of dispute is something like this: 1) Yes, browsers could accept SSL with a bad cert chain and just show the UI as if it was plain text. Howe

I think the point of dispute is something like this: 1) Yes, browsers could accept SSL with a bad cert chain and just show the UI as if it was plain text. However, then they'd need to have multiple codepaths to support what should be a very rare occurrence, in a very security sensitive part of the code: you have to teach the address bar to display http:// http:// when it's really https etc, because otherwise you're diluting the meaning of https, but URLs themselves still say https, etc. It's just complicated. 2) Your justification for why it's meaningful doesn't really work: if browsers used very long lived connections then it might be helpful but they don't, they re-negotiate and re-establish connections constantly. If an eavesdropper wants to MITM you and you aren't doing cert checking then they just need to wait a minute or two until you click another link on the page. It's not an especially interesting security upgrade. In your blog example you don't know the blog wasn't altered in transmission.