Safari 3.1 fails the Acid3 test with 75/100
WebKit nightlies, however, do not.
...it's quite possible that in this case, Safari "passes" the test artifically...
No it isn't. The WebKit and Opera teams passed yesterday. Webkit release candidates are available for download every day, while Opera's latest version is a few days off.
Besides, Acid is just measuring a number of various web standards...
I don't understand what you're saying.
The most important thing a browser can do is comply to all standards.
that apparently aren't really affecting my browsing.
Yes it very much is, you just don't realize it because it isn't usually obvious. That's what makes the Acid tests so useful - they make it obvious.
Say what you will- for all the greatness of Acid, I haven't seen a situation where Safari is going to pull out ahead of Firefox on an ordinary web page.
I'm guessing you haven't actually
looked for such a situation. Firefox won't draw correctly as this proves, and it does it very slowly, which you can see if you compare it with Safari. I'm not sure how it stacks up against IE or Opera but it wouldn't surprise me if they were also quicker.
It's 2008, we're not waiting on our bandwidth anymore, why should we wait on the browser to get its ass in gear and draw the page? We don't have to.
I'm not really sure where the hostility to this is coming from. It shouldn't be a big angry problem that the latest beta version of an established web browser is more advanced than released versions, nor should anyone be getting grumpy about web standards, which are important, and exist to make everything better for you.
I used to be a big fan of Firefox several years ago, but times change, and a lot of the told advantages don't exist anymore.