A large part of the reason why IE6 even works anywhere outside of corporate intranets in 2014 is that we, web developers, have put in countless hours of painful and completely unnecessary work to make it work.
I just really don't have any sympathy for you. It's not anything approaching hard these days. These days, you just write everything in a compiles-to-javascript language it figures out the browser compatibilities for you. That shit didn't EXIST. You were considered an ASSHOLE if you did anything with JavaScript.
Hopefully, one day I will be the crotchety old man complaining about how the new kids never had to worry about IE8 issues.
After all, that's the whole point of progress. How dared our ancestors complain about working 12 hours a day in dangerous coal mines when their own ancestors worked 16 hours a day under even more dangerous conditions? IE4 vs. NN4 was trivial by comparison with that, but the general principle holds.