Those devs were debating what the best practice is, not refusing best practices. Saying stuff like "Learn to do X properly" in an argument is disingenuous and weak.
why is there a question as to what the best practice is. If you always use a semicolon you have no ambiguity and thus no errors resulting from it. if you don't always use a semicolon you have ambiguity and the resulting compiler errors.
Why would you ever not use them other than lazyness?
Crockford's argument, though stated abrasively, is that the best practice is the least ambiguous one.