Really? I'm using Chrome on Linux, and most of these points still seem to be present on my build. Maybe Ubuntu is serving me up a stale version of the dev build?
I have been using the Safari/Chrome inspector a lot recently to clean up the cross-browser version of The Plan Is.
I'm probably biased because I learned how to use Firebug first, but it always feels like Firebug was designed to do what developers needed, and the Web Kit inspector was designed to copy as many of the Firebug features as possible. There are some sharp and pointy edges that look good but introduce friction.
That may be because Firebug is an extension and was mostly built by people who needed the functionality.
(Similarly the IE8 inspector, whilst horrible, feels like something that was (badly) designed rather than copied.)
That Firebug is an extension is one of its worst features. Every version of Safari or WebKit I download has a working inspector built in.
Every time I launch an archived version of Firefox, or get a new version of Firefox, I get warnings about incompatible Firebug plugins. It's a real pain when it comes to testing across multiple versions.
