The idea behind vendor specific items is that people can play around with things after vendors introduce them in an attempt to get traction for wider adoption..

The idea behind vendor specific items is that people can play around with things after vendors introduce them in an attempt to get traction for wider adoption... IE6 in my experience was less hated for this than for implementing the box model differently. I don't have to use vendor specific extensions unless I want to play around on the cutting edge. I have no easy way to work around the different box model in older IEs.