The point is, jQuery doesn't free you up from remembering lower level details, they are still there in your face all the time, especially when it comes to event delegation and handling. jQuery also doesn't help you with CSS, which is even more of a pain than DOM inconsistencies. The whole point of polyfills is to patch browser incompatibilities, often times without losing any performance to newer browsers, so you can provide the best experience to half the people in the world on newer browsers and a mediocre experience to the rest, instead of a mediocre experience for everyone. If you care about attention to details, you should understand what your browser is doing. Polyfills are things that you only have to learn once and drop in once. Isn't providing a good experience one of the more important things?
Actually, jQuery can help with CSS inconsistencies, much the same way vanilla Javascript can, if you have the mind to use it that way.
You seem to be laying much of the "mediocre experience" on jQuery in this case. I would like to know why you feel this way. Seems to me that loading in polyfills for every browser inconsistency can lead you to the same problems you feel exist with jQuery.
I don't just care what my browser is doing, I care what all of them are doing; which often leads to using jQuery. Depends on the project and the number of expected browsers involved.
Polyfills are things you learn once and drop in once? So is jQuery.
What if the best experience to be provided suggests using jQuery? Would you use it?
All in all, to use or not use jQuery often depends on the project. If it fits, use it; if it doesn't, don't use it.
