Originally Posted by TeraTask

I think it gained it's popularity from those who finally realized the power of javascript and who use it it conjunction with that object. MS only supported in natively with IE 7 which opened up a very large market. Codebases such as script.aculo.us came about after people realized the power of javascript and implemented some basic support for server calls. People usually get excited because the major browsers started supporting some of the properties of CSS 3 which is a far more important addition to Web 2.0 than is commonly discussed. To put it all in short: IE has been WAY, WAY, WAY behind in supporting standards and very commonly-used features of browsers and now that they've finally worked in some BASIC support, people are getting excited. Damn MS forever!!!