IE is just crap

As happy as I was that I was using AJAX in my latest webapp (http://www.proco.be) as disappointed I was that
the prototype library (Ajax.Update in particular) didn't seem to work on larger datasets in IE since its
header has a certain limit. As usual IE just swallows the error.

Since webwork is
using dojo internally I was given a choice but I found prototype easier to use, so now I was forced using
dojo. OK modifying, debugging couple of hours later...
system error -1072896748 in IE's
usual javascript error box
WTF??
Googling a bit pointed me to some weird
error in the MSXML parser that couldn't handle UTF-8 (mind the dash). OK fixed, another error in IE, what's
next...

Well got an even nicer one.. Seems if you take an element and give it
id="description" and try setting the innerHtml of it it won't work. Setting it to whatever magically fixes
the stuff.

Why is following the standards so hard?