Not to mention how the truly ubiquitous HTTP protocol uses CRLF in the headers. The mechanical origins of the CR/LF combo were so strongly ingrained in develop

Not to mention how the truly ubiquitous HTTP protocol uses CRLF in the headers. The mechanical origins of the CR/LF combo were so strongly ingrained in developer culture that line oriented protocols like HTTP inexplicably continued to use it - either that or Tim Berners Lee just copied it from earlier line oriented protocols like SMTP because it just seemed like the "right way to do things". It also doesn't help that most modern web servers also include logic to handle a single LF character to terminate lines anyway.