That isn't how it was. When Phoenix was initially released, it was running the Netscape rendering engine with everything else stripped away. There was no IE Tab

That isn't how it was. When Phoenix was initially released, it was running the Netscape rendering engine with everything else stripped away. There was no IE Tab. Throughout the process of becoming Firebird, and then Firefox, IE Tab was never part of the core browser or default installation. I know: I ran all of these browsers as they came out. Even though many sites were built specifically for IE, it was very rarely bad enough that you couldn't manage with Firefox. Compatibility hadn't gotten that bad. (If you were going to make a dramatically simplified browser today, however, I do think this would be an excellent route to go.)