Well, each of those values will only work correctly in one browser, other browsers would skip the ones they don't understand, yes?
color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5);
Browser which do not support rgba simply ignore it and use the rgb() value.If my gradient looked bad in Mozilla, how on earth would the I know which property to change? They'd seem identical unless I memorized every single browser specific implementation of every CSS property.
It's not like we don't have this issue already with different versions of the same engine changing syntax.