I think that it was intentional. Microsoft often comes under pressure for competing with their suppliers and this was the one example where they didn't even try

I think that it was intentional. Microsoft often comes under pressure for competing with their suppliers and this was the one example where they didn't even try. It's also why no-one used WPF: without a grid it was worse than Visual Basic 6 for Microsoft's bread-and-butter business customers. This was a huge strategic misstep, as instead of hiring "WPF" developer you had to hire a "Telerik" or (shudder) "Infragistics" developer or spend a coupe of months extra onboarding new hires.