Bingo. The single reason I switched to IE about the time of version 3 is that it just didn't crash very often. Again, Microsoft being better at writing software that works, see my longer essay in this topic. Like Boeing buying MacDonald Douglas, this part of Netscape was captured by the executives of a failing company who were better at politics and didn't care about minor details like the quality of the product. Here the existing product, as I recall they focused on the great rewrite from scratch which eventually became Firefox.
Also see how Friendster failed after the VC types ousted the founder and focused on doing deals with other companies, were not interested in reports from those below them that it was taking tens of minutes to even log onto the site.