Probably due to the fact that I'm not a web designer but I really don't agree with the extent of the whole backwards compatability and cross-browser support 'hoop jumping' that web designers are expected to go through.
It always makes me chuckle when I think about it as I don't think I've ever comes across this in any other area of any other industry to the extent that it exists on the web.
How old is Netscape 4.5? yet reading most articles web designers are expected to consider and cater for this when developing their front ends, yet I don't see anyone complaining that Adobe CS2 won't run on their Windows NT 3.5 box
Similarly, when you install a software application on your PC their are normally published system requirements that have to be meet otherwise you may get unexpected results. Why is not acceptable to extend this philosophy to the web?
I know of one software company who only support two version of one OS and even then there are strict requirements on the hardware also installed. And quite simply, if your system doesn't meet their (very strict) requirements then they will not offer you any support for there product. They make this very clear prior to purchase and installation and I whole heartly agree with their approach. Life for a web designer would seem so much easier if this approach was also extended to the web.
It just seems to me that in many cases, it would be quicker for the viewer to go and download and install (one of) the required browser(s) than it would be for the deigner to start hacking their CSS or other layout techniques to support the (complete guess and probably exaggeration) 400+ browser flavours out there.
Having said that, I think it's probably good practice to support the newer major browsers across the major OSs and also text browsers, but I think for anything that falls in between that, the designer should be able to say.. "Sorry, but your on your own with that one".