This spec isn't the only game for offline storage. IndexedDB is the favored replacement: http://www.w3.org/TR/IndexedDB/
I like it because the API is much more web-like than SQL. Others have other reasons to prefer it.
I like it because the API is much more web-like than SQL. Others have other reasons to prefer it.
Also if IndexedDB has a "lifeless" spec, it might be because there's not much to discuss. Something simple and straightforward tends to requires much less discussion and debate, than something complex.
(disclaimer: I've come to quite like JS, it's made some of my experiments phenomenally simple. but it's weird.)
The web was built by taking existing systems, and cutting away at them until they were so simple they barely worked. But because they were simple they could spread.
IndexedDB isn't the simplest spec it could be (I think they could do-away with transactions if they were willing to require MVCC semantics) but it is admirably simple for a database.
That may be true in this specific case (I'm not saying either way), but it does not hold generally. For example, APIs involving directories and files are simpler than APIs involving inodes and blocks.