Open standards are good for all of us. Proprietary systems only ever benefit those who own and control them. The W3C is a fallible, flawed organisation performing an utterly sisyphean task and I think we should give credit where credit is due.
In an ideal world, the perfect standards for everything would just magic themselves out of thin air. Unfortunately, we live in a world where big organisations have commercial interests in manipulating and controlling technology to their own ends. We should celebrate that we still have a mostly open web and thank the W3C for getting things done against all odds.
I'm all for a freer, more open approach to web standards, but I understand that realpolitik is a necessary evil. I'm just really happy that I can't remember the last time I saw the words "best viewed on browser x". Those of us who remember using early versions of Firefox are well aware of just how much progress has been made in standards-compliance. If the W3C is becoming unfit for purpose then that's a damned shame, but we shouldn't throw the baby out of the bathwater. Web standards matter, they are the essence of what the web is. I shudder at the thought of returning to the bad old days of <multicol>, <marquee> and ActiveX controls.