That definitely makes sense. This isn't a case for saying it's "OK," but I feel that a browser is its own sort of contained environment, or at least people have come to accept it as that (since we have applications within each browser) and there is generally not much consistency with native UI elements at that level, so it's mainly that this consistency has been slowly degraded over time and people seem used to it not being consistent enough so that it's OK for the browser to make its own rules to some extent.
They already don't use native tabs (which most OS interfaces provide) and I'd call this a positive. In fact, I'd argue that many of the native UI elements are customized, but most people are used to that, largely because the customizations improve the product, so that's kind of why I asked the original question: what about this change makes the product worse in practice, why not insist all elements be native then if it's just an argument for consistency and not one for a loss of usability/productivity?
They already don't use native tabs (which most OS interfaces provide) and I'd call this a positive. In fact, I'd argue that many of the native UI elements are customized, but most people are used to that, largely because the customizations improve the product, so that's kind of why I asked the original question: what about this change makes the product worse in practice, why not insist all elements be native then if it's just an argument for consistency and not one for a loss of usability/productivity?