If you think about it, the HTML <abbr> tag is not that well thought out. Or rather, inconsistent interpretations of the title attribute on different displays limits <abbr> usefulness.
Sure, conditional media types allow auto expanding the title on touch or print displays.
But many semantic elements have similar quirks that are only noticeable with a good cross browser/display testing suite, which no one has btw.
Surprising quirky behaviour + real world “get it done now” business constraints = everything’s a <div> and/or a <span>.