Using IE5 and Netscape Navigator as straw men to ridicule progressive enhancement completely misses the point! Progressive enhancement is about ignoring user ag

Using IE5 and Netscape Navigator as straw men to ridicule progressive enhancement completely misses the point! Progressive enhancement is about ignoring user agents. If you use PE, then you just-so-happen to get IE5 and NN support, but you also get support for Chrome, IE10, FF, Safari, mobiles, etc. If you don't follow PE, you're playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole: even if you only care about a few browsers, the combinatorial explosion of version/OS/screen-size/connection-speed/etc. configurations to keep track of can get ridiculous. If you miss out one combination, it can be game over: lost customers due to a white screen of death, or something equally unusable. You could keep pouring more effort into whacking moles, or you could reduce the stakes of the game. If your "game over" scenario consists of a product screen with images, description, reviews, a search box and an order form, but no hover-over zoom feature, it doesn't matter anywhere near as much. You no longer need to worry as much about missing a few configurations, and can focus on fixing bugs and adding features. The fact that it might also work on IE5 and NN is just a bonus; it's certainly not the point.