There were so many thousands of micro-decisions along the way, in all three areas of HTML, JS (language and DOM) and CSS, that the result looks more like a rand

There were so many thousands of micro-decisions along the way, in all three areas of HTML, JS (language and DOM) and CSS, that the result looks more like a random walk than a set of well-thought-out standards at any given point. Still, they're what we have, and, like the gauge of railroad track in Europe based on the ruts originally made by Roman chariots (the width of two horses), we gotta build the trains to run on 'em. And, unlike the physical case, we can widen the rails every so often when most trains have adapted to the new widths.