>post-IE8, browsers are pretty easy to deal with on their own.

False:

- CSS browser prefixes are automatically inserted by jQuery

- Many jQuery selectors don't exist in the CSS selector specification

- Looks really really ugly and that makes it hard to read for you and other coders.

    var pairs = $(".form").not(".old").serialize();

    /* without jQuery */

    var pairs = [].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll(".form"));
    var data = forms.filter(function(ele){
      return /\bold\b/.test(ele.className);
    }).map(function(ele){ 
      var form = ele.querySelectorAll("select, input, textarea");
      var pairs = [].slice.call(form).map(function(subele){
        // maybe if subele.type === "select"
        // but I got tired of writing this example
        // but that's the point anyway
        return subele.name + ":" + (subele.value || "") + ";";
      });
      return pairs

    }).join("").replace(/;$/, "");

So be kind with your co-workers, use jQuery. Even my 5 year old android can run jQuery without freezing the built-in browser.