I've been dealing with browser quirks since the mid 90's... there's never been a better time to be a web developer. That said the browser tech alone has exploded with CORS, Web Sockets and WebRTC ... that's not counting the ground gained with node.js, mongodb and others...
The landscape is rapidly changing, so who knows what the near, and the next couple of years will bring to the table. Golang, docker.io and coreos are other things to keep an eye on.
Hopefully this internet thing will just fade away soon and we can all go back to real development.
I disagree that catering to that fills one's day with misery. In fact I think it's fun and I wouldn't enjoy working on a library, thick client or compiler quite as much. That's ok, development is big enough for us both to find something we like doing, without needing to denigrate what we don't like.
Also, even for a front-end person, those don't have to be mutually exclusive options.
Case in point: this week I am working on both heterogeneous end user-facing UI stuff AND [relatively] controlled-environment node-based webdev tooling for our FE team. I enjoy both types of challenges and think its healthy not to get too pigeon-holed into one such context or the other.
/$.02
Manual server management: Not even once.