I'd hire him. It's easy to forget now how completely IE pwned Netscape in 1995-2002. They won by being better. I was a die-hard Netscape loyalist and Microsoft hater. I finally switched in 2000 because Microsoft's offering worked and Netscape's didn't, and I couldn't ignore that anymore.
The fact that Chrome and Firefox are simply better than IE now doesn't change that. People should be evaluated by how well they did with the technology and resources available at the time they did the work, and not by how badly their employer fucked things up after they left.
The fact that Chrome and Firefox are simply better than IE now doesn't change that. People should be evaluated by how well they did with the technology and resources available at the time they did the work, and not by how badly their employer fucked things up after they left.