Drupal's .info file parser versus PHP's .ini file parser

why does Drupal have its own .ini style parsing function - http://d6-api.drupal.org/api/function/drupal_parse_info_file - instead of using PHP's parse_ini_file - http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.parse-ini-file.php ? (no, this is not academic for me!)
[4:18pm] Berdir: benjamin-agaric: because it's a different syntax.
[4:19pm] Berdir: benjamin-agaric: there is no standard for .ini files, and php does use a different one for php.ini than drupal does

I think the only Drupal module to write .info file must be Module Builder. Unfortunately, it does so in a very hard-coded way:

<?php
function generate_info($form_values) {
  $info = MODULE_BUILDER_INFO_ID_COMMENT ."\n";
  $info .= 'name = ';
  if (!empty($form_values['module_readable_name'])) {
    $info .= $form_values['module_readable_name'];
  }
  else {
    $info .= $form_values['module_root_name'];
  }
  $info .= "\n";

  $info .= 'description = '. $form_values['module_short_description'] ."\n";
  if (!empty($form_values['module_dependencies'])) {
    foreach (explode(' ', $form_values['module_dependencies']) as $dep) {
      $info .= 'dependencies[] = '. $dep ."\n";
    }
  }
  if (!empty($form_values['module_package'])) {
    $info .= 'package = '. $form_values['module_package'] ."\n";
  }
  $info .= "core = 6.x\n";

  return $info;
}
?>

Only found a very simple writer for .ini files that, interestingly, is a writer and reader of INI files in PHP. Why does everyone hate parse_ini_file? Here is the writing function:

<?php
/**
 * Write data to an INI file
 * 
 * The data array has to be like this:
 * 
 *  Array
 *  (
 *      [Section1] => Array
 *          (
 *              [key1] => val1
 *              [key2] => val2
 *          )
 *      [Section2] => Array
 *          (
 *              [key3] => val3
 *              [key4] => val4
 *          )    
 *  )
 *
 * @param string $filePath
 * @param array $data
 */ 
function ini_write($filePath, array $data) 
{ 
    $output = ''; 
     
    foreach ($data as $section => $values) 
    { 
        //values must be an array 
        if (!is_array($values)) { 
            continue; 
        } 
         
        //add section 
        $output .= "[$section]\r\n"; 
         
        //add key/value pairs 
        foreach ($values as $key => $val) { 
            $output .= "$key=$val\r\n"; 
        } 
        $output .= "\r\n"; 
    } 
     
    //write data to file 
    file_put_contents($filePath, trim($output)); 
} 
?>

Resolution