I think that you messed up "browsers" with "search engines". I also think, that penguin works exactly as intended. Google wants to get rid of "spammy" results. The problem is, that due to the high black-hat competition of recent years, many niches do not contain non-blackhat sites. Even legitimate businesses used black-hat tactics and "over optimized" their content, because everyone else did it and without it you just could not rank. Therefore some freak results happen. For a short time there simply is nothing "valid" to put on the first page in those niches.
Also: Google starts to understand the quality of texts. They bought algorithms, which are able to distinguish between real and fake user-reviews with 90% accuracy (we are speaking of texts where humans are not able to make out the difference at all). Can't post links yet, so if you want a reference do a little search. Its easy to find. The principles used in these algorithms can of course be applied to other "spammy" topics. Lets face the facts: 99% of the content produced by IMers is written with the goal to sell, not to inform. Googles customers want information, not salespages.
In my opinion, the so called "blunders" are signs of google beeing on the way to clear its search-results of websites made with the intent to sell. Which, if true, of-course will mean a large paradigm shift for the IM world. Adapt or die is the game.
