h.264 was never a standard for browsers to implement. It is widely in use, yes, but not a standard. This is why there was such a huge issue over <video>, because Firefox, Opera, and Chrome didn't want h.264 in the standard.
Firefox and Opera have much larger marketshare, and they weren't implementing h.264. It was DOA as a "standard" long before Chrome dropped it.
No, it's not. There is a reason not to implement h.264 - it's patent encumbered and eventually there will be licensing costs that will make free implementations impossible.
There is a difference when company G takes a stand against a bad standard and company M that can't implement simple features correctly despite the fact that it can dedicate humongous resources to its development.
Yes, it is inconvenient, but I'd say it's more justified than the IE inconvenience. They didn't implement h264 because of concerns about how it would restrict distribution, worries about fees, and the fear of another patent encumbered (aka "free") format become standard. Microsoft didn't implement these features pretty much every other browser has because of...what, time constraints?
h.264 was never a standard for browsers to implement. It is widely in use, yes, but not a standard. This is why there was such a huge issue over <video>, because Firefox, Opera, and Chrome didn't want h.264 in the standard.
Firefox and Opera have much larger marketshare, and they weren't implementing h.264. It was DOA as a "standard" long before Chrome dropped it.