> The browser is so comprehensive in functionality and APIs, and such a challenge to keep up with Google's constant churn of new features and total dominance, that not even Microsoft could do it.
I always suspect that it's not that they couldn't do what you describe per se, it's that they couldn't do that within other shareholder driver parameters to make them want to do it.
They just realized they didn't really needed their own rendering engine.
It would have been a nice to have, like in the old days of IE6, where they could decide over the direction of the web.
But more valuable to them is that people are using a browser they control (no matter the tech within) - which is why they try to push you to edge however they can.
I always suspect that it's not that they couldn't do what you describe per se, it's that they couldn't do that within other shareholder driver parameters to make them want to do it.