I never thought of that as an inconsistency, but rather of a feature. My thought is: Layout is left-to-right so why should something work top-to-bottom? Same as text-align: center will center horizontally, and (/s) vertically centering something is impossible.
But I agree with the basic sentiment. The small irregular things [1] make it really weird to get, but once you'll get it, it's crazy cool. However, that does not make a language great.