My problem is that it wasn't implemented _correctly_. If you're going to implement a feature, do it right or don't do it at all. Their lack of concern or pride in their project does not bode well for the community.
I'm not a part of the community, and I'm no longer a PHP developer (if I can help it) but I can't think of any other reason the global functions would still have inconsistent argument orders almost 14 years on. So, if the 'correctness' of their implementation bothers you, do what I did: move on. Because it will never get any better.
Incidentally, I wrote an anti-PHP rant last year called "Why PHP Won" that made its rounds here. It's pretty easy to get fed up with PHP, especially when you know there's better stuff out there. Once you're at that point though, you're done. It's anything-else time.
That said, in direct reference to your post: so what? My point still stands. I don't disagree with your assessment of the way it implements those features, I just don't think that it means "there is no hope for PHP", and I don't think it's at all productive to waste time complaining that it doesn't behave the way you want it to.
PHP -- and most other languages -- do have the power to "hack something together". You just have to be willing to adapt to the system at hand.
But there's a bit of a delta between this and the attention-grabbing title of the post.