Of course this sounds like the right engineering approach, but perhaps fitting that into the browser use case was not possible in a manner suitable for the Tor

Of course this sounds like the right engineering approach, but perhaps fitting that into the browser use case was not possible in a manner suitable for the Tor project? After all, the primary interface to the Tor network for most users is their browser. [edit] meant to add: of course you could add a new protocol, but then that would imply browser modifications, right?