IE6 was released in 2001 juust before Windows XP. In other words it's from the Windows 98 errra. Nothing is designed for it specifically nowdays , if you think IE6 should be supported forever that is unfortunately not going to happen, complete compatability with IE6 would require a simple and advanced version of nearly every applicaton to be developed.
While I agree with what you say, as a developer of applications for the web I follow the trend of the internet. In the last month IE6 was reported to be in the top 5 browsers with at least more than 10% of users.
In this log (
**broken link removed** ) for the previous month it has 15% of users using IE6 still, that's fourth in the list. I know charts of browsers vary but that's still pretty much up there, I'd say. On this site there are 116,000 users, at 11% that's still 12670 users may not be able to view the forum as intended.
I agree that some websites need the cutting edge of technology, but forums are simply message boards and as you say, the site worked before and doesn't now. The question has to be asked, why upgrade. Is it because the older software won't work after a certain date due to other software or hardware upgrades or is it because a newer product came along that was supposed to be better. We all know what happened when Windows Vista came out! Sheesh, what a shambles that was.
I never upgraded to Win 98. I waited for Win98SE after all (well most of) the bugs had been got rid of. Never went to Vista, always WinXP. Now I await other users to test and get the fixes for Win7
This is not meant to be negative, just an opinion based on experience. No offence meant EM. The site is great and I can use Firefox, Chrome or Opera if I have too much of a problem as I have all those installed too.