You're correct. Alternatives were slim. But in retrospect, perhaps that was part of the problem? WP had zero incentive for clean code, QA, industry standards, e

You're correct. Alternatives were slim. But in retrospect, perhaps that was part of the problem? WP had zero incentive for clean code, QA, industry standards, etc. The more it grew, ironically the less it cared. The embedded base of site and dev as well as the plugin and theme ecosystem maintain the momentum forward, somehow.