I would go as far as to say the rewrite and aggressive reconcepting of Netscape spurred the growth of newer browsers. NS 6 added too much that people didn't want or didn't want in that context.

My comment above was trying to point out: NS6 rewrite wasn't the only browser to start back from scratch at that time.

What I think Spolksy was advocating for: Don't try to completely rewrite things for fun, there are a lot of dark corners there.