>As an aside I always kind of wondered why all browsers started including developer tools by default as they are not of use to 99.9% of users. Maybe because it's just easier than making them optional extensions? Does anyone know about what year this started?
This is total conjecture but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with competitive advantage. The best browsers to develop for have a better chance to become the browsers of choice because when things were less standardized (or browsers adhered to standards less) webpages could run better in one browser than another (if they even worked in multiple browsers at all). IE kind of breaks that theory but they had other ways to push IE that did not depend on quality or ease of development.
This is total conjecture but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with competitive advantage. The best browsers to develop for have a better chance to become the browsers of choice because when things were less standardized (or browsers adhered to standards less) webpages could run better in one browser than another (if they even worked in multiple browsers at all). IE kind of breaks that theory but they had other ways to push IE that did not depend on quality or ease of development.