I am sorry but you seem misinformed. Have you followed Firefox in development at all in the last three years? Let me correct a couple of factual inaccuracies and you can draw your own conclusions.
* "Virtually all recent features are only available on Microsoft Windows, some of which are even only available on Windows Vista or Seven." Incorrect. By naming Vista and Seven you are obviously thinking of hardware acceleration as that is the only feature that doesn't work in XP. However, hardware acceleration is fully supported on OS X making them both first class citizens. Linux hardware acceleration does exist but is disabled currently because of the abysmal quality of 3D drivers in Linux. Mozilla has stumbled on so many bugs that all will have to be fixed by the Nvidias, AMDs and Intels of this world that it is simply too buggy to use currently.
When it comes to 64bit support, Windows is definitely the third class citizen of the three. 64bit is default on OS X, experimental on Linux but currently unsupported on Windows. You want to run a 64bit build on Windows? You'll have to rely on third party compiles.
* "Adobe, one of the world's greatest software companies, GAVE them a JIT virtual machine designed for Javascript (i.e. the hard part in getting a Javascript JIT compiler) FIVE years ago. They're still not using it in Firefox, which makes it the ONLY modern web browser lacking a Javascript JIT engine." Incorrect. Firefox has had a JIT compiler for years now. And frankly, Mozilla, Google and Apple have squeezed the most out of JIT some time ago and have been focused on more advanced technologies for JavaScript speedups for quite some time now.
* "Other platforms are not even prioritized for testing. That's also against good practices." What makes you think that? 24/7 continuous tinderbox testing (http://tinderbox.mozilla.org/Firefox/) takes place on all platforms but with a strong focus on Linux. Considering actually a lot of development of Firefox takes place on Macs you could say that Windows is the third class citizen here although there is not really a large difference due to automation.
* "What's that with using Direct2D for accelerated 2D rendering? All rendering is done by Cairo, which should be exploiting hardware acceleration." Hardware acceleration of many elements is done using Cairo and OpenGL on all platforms. However, the quality of OpenGL implementation on Windows is far from ideal because the GPU manufacturers focus their driver optimisation on DirectX and not OpenGL. Therefor, Mozilla could choose between mediocre performance using OpenGL or good performance using Direct2D for some pieces of the hardware acceleration effort. They chose best performance, perhaps not a very idealist stance but certainly the most user-friendly. The good news is that Mozilla is uncovering so many bugs in video drivers at the moment, in all three major OSes, that the quality of those is rapidly improving.
* "What's up with HTML5? They're clearly lagging behind Webkit and Opera, even though they were clearly at the front a couple of years ago." Incorrect. A couple of years ago, the term HTML5 wasn't even coined and we were in the middle of the W3C/WhatWG controversy. Currently, the various compliance test show Firefox as the best, or one of the most compliant HTML5 browsers, certainly not lagging. Firefox was the first major engine to replace their existing HTML parser with a HTML5 compliant one. (https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/05/firefox-4-the-html5-parser-inline-svg-speed-and-more/) Webkit followed some time later but we are still waiting on Opera for that one.
I a sorry to say but your clear lack of knowledge of the current browser development landscape make me think that it is you who is a few years behind on what is going on, not Mozilla.
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I am sorry but you seem misinformed. Have you followed Firefox in development at all in the last three years? Let me correct a couple of factual inaccuracies and you can draw your own conclusions.
* "Virtually all recent features are only available on Microsoft Windows, some of which are even only available on Windows Vista or Seven."
Incorrect. By naming Vista and Seven you are obviously thinking of hardware acceleration as that is the only feature that doesn't work in XP. However, hardware acceleration is fully supported on OS X making them both first class citizens. Linux hardware acceleration does exist but is disabled currently because of the abysmal quality of 3D drivers in Linux. Mozilla has stumbled on so many bugs that all will have to be fixed by the Nvidias, AMDs and Intels of this world that it is simply too buggy to use currently.
When it comes to 64bit support, Windows is definitely the third class citizen of the three. 64bit is default on OS X, experimental on Linux but currently unsupported on Windows. You want to run a 64bit build on Windows? You'll have to rely on third party compiles.
* "Adobe, one of the world's greatest software companies, GAVE them a JIT virtual machine designed for Javascript (i.e. the hard part in getting a Javascript JIT compiler) FIVE years ago. They're still not using it in Firefox, which makes it the ONLY modern web browser lacking a Javascript JIT engine."
Incorrect. Firefox has had a JIT compiler for years now. And frankly, Mozilla, Google and Apple have squeezed the most out of JIT some time ago and have been focused on more advanced technologies for JavaScript speedups for quite some time now.
* "Other platforms are not even prioritized for testing. That's also against good practices."
What makes you think that? 24/7 continuous tinderbox testing (http://tinderbox.mozilla.org/Firefox/) takes place on all platforms but with a strong focus on Linux. Considering actually a lot of development of Firefox takes place on Macs you could say that Windows is the third class citizen here although there is not really a large difference due to automation.
* "What's that with using Direct2D for accelerated 2D rendering? All rendering is done by Cairo, which should be exploiting hardware acceleration."
Hardware acceleration of many elements is done using Cairo and OpenGL on all platforms. However, the quality of OpenGL implementation on Windows is far from ideal because the GPU manufacturers focus their driver optimisation on DirectX and not OpenGL. Therefor, Mozilla could choose between mediocre performance using OpenGL or good performance using Direct2D for some pieces of the hardware acceleration effort. They chose best performance, perhaps not a very idealist stance but certainly the most user-friendly. The good news is that Mozilla is uncovering so many bugs in video drivers at the moment, in all three major OSes, that the quality of those is rapidly improving.
* "What's up with HTML5? They're clearly lagging behind Webkit and Opera, even though they were clearly at the front a couple of years ago."
Incorrect. A couple of years ago, the term HTML5 wasn't even coined and we were in the middle of the W3C/WhatWG controversy. Currently, the various compliance test show Firefox as the best, or one of the most compliant HTML5 browsers, certainly not lagging. Firefox was the first major engine to replace their existing HTML parser with a HTML5 compliant one. (https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/05/firefox-4-the-html5-parser-inline-svg-speed-and-more/) Webkit followed some time later but we are still waiting on Opera for that one.
I a sorry to say but your clear lack of knowledge of the current browser development landscape make me think that it is you who is a few years behind on what is going on, not Mozilla.