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This removes a lot of flexibility, which is the whole point of date format strings. "31st" doesn't give you the choice to print just the number, or the number and its ordinal suffix ("-st," "-rd," etc.). Also, preferably "Friday" should stand for the day, not the week. :)

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All of the things you say can be had by doing things grandparent's way with minor tweaks.

But then you're left with essentially the standard php date format, except instead of one-letter tokens, they're all longer.

But concrete and equal in all languages, which is the point of the OP.

the strftime format is an open standard that's already the same in all languages.

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