Its not browser elitism when you have 4 browsers that work and 1 that doesn't. If you are doing trivial ui work, it is not hard to support IE. If you are doing anything close to innovative or competitive with what is out there, it is a huge pain.
I can grasp what you're referring to. Bleeding-edge features are tough to support in large part because of Internet Explorer's slow release cycle.
However, the decision has still been made to jump onto a runaway train. All users should be treated the same. Choose an approach that doesn't pick favorites.