I have worked at Google (although in a different department). From what I could see there was never intentional hurting of other browsers. However, given a list of (always too long) TODOs, improving a non-critical feature for 10% of users often just doesn't make it to the top.

And yes, Google is a huge company with a ton of developers, but teams are not. In my experience, these kind of fixes are sometimes even done by individuals in their "spare" time, to contribute a bit back (even if it's for a competing browser).