WAP did, yes. JS and Flash are bad habits, but don't break the architecture of the web.
I don't have to. Your browser tells me. Not breaking the web means that, for example, when you're on WLAN, a browser on a Maemo device could request a full desktop version of the site, while it could specifilally request a mobile version when on a slow data connection like GPRS. It would always do so, not needing to know whether the mobile version is available at all, if it's domain.mobi or m.domain.com or www.domain.com/mobile/ ... The architecture of the web says that this should be done using specific MIME-types in the HTTP-request and/or loading the mobile style sheet rather than the regular one. The URI should remain the same, though. Creating domains/subdomains/... for what should be handled in the HTTP protocol is not The Right Thing. Instead, my mobile browser on low bandwidth should send a request for www.domain.com, saying it would, if available, please prefer a mobile-friendly version, in German, if possible, encoded in UTF-8. It's as simple as that.
Which doesn't affect my browsing experience much.
Except that my N800 has a relatively large screen. Remember "desktop-size" was 640x480 not so long ago.
That's exactly the point. You have cell phones with touch screen and no hardware keys with touch screen and some hardware keys with touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard without touch screen and some hardware keys without touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard ... The challenge for the UI is not the fact that they are mobile devices (which cell phones, of course, are). The challenge is that for each of them, you need to find user interfaces and workflows that best adapt to their specific input capabilities. For a touch screen without any hardware keys this will need to be radically different than for a phone that has no touch-screen, but QWERTY plus 10 additional function keys.
You consider looking at the HTML source a "strange obsession" that "normal" people don't have.
Me not being normal aside
what you say here just backs my original claim: Reduced functionality has nothing to do with mobily use.
If I have this bizarre fetish of looking into the HTML source, I will want to do it regardless of which device I'm at.
Those who don't do it in the first place would also accept something like Fennec as their desktop browser, because they don't even realize there's something missing.
So the point remains that Fennec is a stripped to the bare minimum browser that maybe appeals to a certain type of users. Its user interface is in no way optimized, though, for mobile usage, as "mobile usage" as such doesn't mean less functionality, but only a different UI.
No, that's what a mobile PC is for.
rdesktop would require me to have my desktop PC up and running and connected to the net plus i'd need a way to get around the dynamic-IP-stuff... why would I want that if all I need is right in my hand?
Mobile devices are the hardware, they don't adapt to it. And the hardware is getting more powerful with each generation.
I don't see my laptop moving in this direction (it is a mobile device, isn't it), I don't see netbooks moving there... And as for the tablets: Yes, we see some strange things coming in the Maemo5 UI, but then: I can use any decent browser on it the same way I can use Claws instead of Modest. It's not a matter of "the device". It's a matter of software. And Fennec isn't particularly good software.