Safari 1.2, 1.3 problems in OSX 10.3.9

Question

After updating to 10.3.9, which installs Safari 1.3, I was unable to launch Safari. Attempts to launch failed without generating any error message or bringing up the Safari menu bar at the top of the screen. I decided to try reinstalling Safari, but the only version available as a stand-alone download was 1.2. This version runs, but generates an uninformative error message ("A problem occurred) when I try to add a bookmark. Usually the new bookmark appears in the menu, but is gone the next time I run the program.
Other internet-dependent programs run normally. I can use IE5, for instance, but I prefer Safari (or used to). I also have a lot of Safari bookmarks which don't export easily in 1.x. Any advice other than "Upgrade to Tiger, and use Safari 2"?

Answer 1

~Bee,
By and large Safari gets around the vast majority of web sites, including the Apple Discussions, without difficulty and Keychain works 'as advertised'. (I do remember the original release of Safari that did not work with the discussions at all, but that was some time ago.)
I have only used Safari in Tiger a little bit, but it seems to work at least as well as the Panther version. Next week I will probably make to leap to Tiger on my main drive instead of just on an expendable (test) drive (especially now that Carbon Copy Cloner makes it through authentication in 10.4.2 without having to resort to going into terminal). I guess I have been bitten a little too often to blindly make major changes on my main drive.
I am sorry that the answer below got a bit lengthy and wanders around too much, but...
There are, of course, various pages that do not render properly. I have not kept track of them unfortunately...I suppose I should...but that is not unique to Safari. Firefox, while thumping their collective chests about it being 'the most standards compliant browser', fails to properly render any number of sites. Let's face it, there are still quite a few site around which are very IE centric.
I am afraid that I am guilty of keeping several browsers open at any given time for such reasons as well as my whim of the moment. IE remains my default browser for a very few reasons. It saves an entire web page as a single file and saves the URL as well. iCab is the only other browser which even comes close to this capability and it is still pretty 'rough around the edges' in this regard. Then there are some sights which just won't work with anything else, not even Opera or Firefox spoofed to appear to be IE 6 for windows. There are other features which IE has which are entirely lacking in most browsers or the implementation is not as good. Yes, it is old and out of date and I don't actually use it much for browsing, but that is why I keep it as the default.
I am one of the ludites who likes the sidebar for navigating through bookmarks. If you have not recently counted the number of mouse clicks necessary to navigate through a series of bookmarks in Safari or any other browser without a sidebar you should do it some time just to remind yourself that there is an economy of effort that is not to be underestimated. Besides, the people who do not like the sidebar (and there are some whose logic I can not understand) simply do not have to use it. They can go and use the full window.
Reorderable tabs, close tab undo, automatic bookmarks backup, the ability to configure a particular web site's cookies, pop-up status and any other preference in a way unique to that web site and a whole host of other features that just make life easier would be welcome in Safari.
The bottom line is that I use Safari and Firefox the most (and try to keep my bookmarks current there) and dabble with the rest.
Cheers,
Richard