> The only way to actually get it perfect is to do browser and OS detection and then hand-code a bunch of manual offsets that you keep up to date. And obviously that would be insane.
That's exactly what you do. And that's what I'm saying: the view that the product we're making is not worth doing one-off fixes for, that we need one solution for everything. No other trade has this delusion about everything being a perfect system you can control from a single commanding height (a component library, for example). Even other forms of programming, like game development, don't pretend you can avoid doing one-offs. Just web development, as far as I can tell.
That's exactly what you do. And that's what I'm saying: the view that the product we're making is not worth doing one-off fixes for, that we need one solution for everything. No other trade has this delusion about everything being a perfect system you can control from a single commanding height (a component library, for example). Even other forms of programming, like game development, don't pretend you can avoid doing one-offs. Just web development, as far as I can tell.