You're blaming the lack of a spec for all the wasted time but that's not the cause. The cause is that CSV is popular and is popular because it is incompletely

You're blaming the lack of a spec for all the wasted time but that's not the cause. The cause is that CSV is popular and is popular because it is incompletely defined. (See also: HTML, RSS.) Making a CSV spec post-hoc solves nothing, as others here have pointed out, because there is already an "installed base" so to speak. If anything it's worse because it might mislead some people into thinking they can write to the spec and handle any CSV file. The right move, if you want a nicely precise and strict spec, is to admit it's a new thing and give it a new name, maybe CSVS or something like that. But good luck making it popular - there are plenty of CSV libraries out there that handle most CSV files well enough, just as there is tons of software that handles HTML and RSS well enough (which is why I am a fan of both those formats).