I don't see the big deal, Safari is faster on my box and seems to do everything better. I never used Safari until the latest version and now it's all I use. IE8 isn't bad, but not worth switching from another browser, unless I guess that browser is IE7. Chrome is faster, Firefox is better, Safari is faster & better.
Maybe they'll get it right in IE9, I mean no spell checking? really? I bet IE9 won't have spell checking either, I could see MS saying "spell checking in a browser isn't a feature people want" Either that or they add it and say "IE9 is so uber advanced you HAVE to use Windows 7 to run it, Vista can't handle the power of IE9!" It's pretty sad when Apples browser runs better on Windows than the integrated Microsoft one.