The Apple design approach works if you're building a platform from the ground up. If you're trying to produce reliable results on someone else's platform, you need to understand any hard limitations it has, because you aren't going to be able to fix them. The closer an HTML+CSS document gets to rocket science, the more environments in which it fails to render even usably, much less the way you were hoping it might.
I don't think anyone would accept a print designer being completely ignorant of what is feasible with ink on paper, especially if you are going to be using mass-produced ink in one of various worn-in press someone else is operating.
I don't think anyone would accept a print designer being completely ignorant of what is feasible with ink on paper, especially if you are going to be using mass-produced ink in one of various worn-in press someone else is operating.