Because local network admins in various big companies refuse to upgrade from IE6 since they depend on internal applications coded against IE6 specifically, and Microsoft does not control every single corporate LAN to be able to force upgrades down their throats when they don't want them ...
... and many companies are unwilling to fork out the money for upgraded boxes until those running Windows 2000 finally die. We're stuck in that situation.
do you realize that we are at the current situation precisely because every IE version is different from the previous one and they are all different from the standards available at their time?
If local network admins upgraded to the latest and greatest IE8/9 we would still be in the same horse shit regarding IE not following web standards. We would be free of "IE6 doesn't have a fucking clue about the box model". But we would be at "IE8 doesn't support canvas (or proper event bubble)".
Microsoft has been using this "network admins don't upgrade from IE6" for too long as an excuse for the mess they keep putting web standards into.
A proper solution for Microsoft now would be to completely ditch IE backend and use one of the current available libraries like webkit. And put in place a IE frontend that can have IE6/7/8 tabs and a proper browser (defaulting to a proper browser). Any other move coming from Microsoft is either PR or evilness.
