It was harder to code for, sure, but looking at the standards, there were far fewer things a browser vendor needed to implement, so the complexity of the techno

It was harder to code for, sure, but looking at the standards, there were far fewer things a browser vendor needed to implement, so the complexity of the technology involved was lower. It's the same situation as RISC vs CISC - for a programer, CISC is "easier" to write for (== it does more work for you), but for a chip designer, RISC is much simpler to design and implement.