The billion dollar companies using webkit really should spend a few dollars on constantly upgrading their own developer tools.
That's what they are doing, no?
Firebug is such a champion of a program, if Chrome sniffers want it, install Firefox or send a message to crApple / Google.
It's not Chrome wanting Firebug, it's users wanting Firebug.
So the reason for Firebug Lite's existance is easily explained. When it was created there were no such tools for IE, Chrome, Opera or Safari. Nowadays the reason to have Firebug Lite has changed. People just want to have a the same UI in all browsers. And IMO Firebug has the best UI of all of them.
After all, Google stole/bought a heap of Mozilla developers so why
should anybody at Mozilla work on tools to help competing browsers?
Mozilla would rather duplicate Firebug instead! LOL.
Also I want to emphasize that Firebug and Firebug Lite are developed by volunteers (with exception of Honza). So it was never a question of Mozilla working on tools for other browsers but the Firebug Working Group working on them.
And I still believe the idea behind Firebug Lite to have a cross-browser tool for development is very good. Though as Honza already mentioned we currently don't have the resources to continue working on Firebug Lite and we would appreciate anybody wanting to take up the challenge to continue its development.
Sebastian