Right now people seem not to be giving a rat’s bottom about Opera, but when Internet Explorer hits version 10, watch all those rats scurrying to get off the sinking ship that’s called the SS Browser Sniffer. (Either that or just hack their pointless and utterly useless scripts again.)

If they can’t be bothered to get their website working properly, they don’t deserve my custom.

That’s of very high self esteem but if you deal with something like Bank of America and expect them to fix their web system which would probably cost several thousand dollars and a length approval process (you know from IT department to finance and on and on) guess who is going to lose; it’s no one else but you. Imagine maintaining your browser loyalty and expecting them to change their web system just for a minority of their customers. Besides, Opera isn’t the only browser in the world and (top 5th, not the best) and this problem DID NOT HAPPEN BEFORE AND OPERA IS THE ONLY BROWSER which makes an issue. Think about it; when there are larger things at play.
Seriously, I really doubt whether someone waits till the bank fixes their site to make an emergency transaction online, rather simply opening another browser and making the transaction without delaying a second. Think about it; it’s Opera which we all praise which is going to tarnish its reputation. We can’t expect everyone to be tech savvy like all of us here.
Ideally, what Opera should do is, if it ever wishes to maintain its reputation, to alter the version into something else, maintain its popularity while the industry, being aware of this issue now, create some sort of a standard to change shoddily coded web sites.

Moreover, being practical, if I encountered this while browsing, I’d simply open the site either in IE or Firefox without going to worry about Opera.

If I encounter a site that doesn’t let me in using Opera, I put it into stealth mode and masquerade as Firefox. If I still can’t get in, I’ll go to another website. If they can’t be bothered to get their website working properly, they don’t deserve my custom.

The development team of Opera is the single party that can solve this issue out than waiting for other companies to fix their sites.

Er … no. Other browsers will eventually reach v10 and the problem will arise again. Browser manufacturers who are doing things properly should not have to hack and bodge their correct systems to allow for bad practice elsewhere. With the masking options that Opera provides (and has done for years) and, as I said earlier, the small number of sites where I expect this to be an issue at all, I very much doubt that there will be more than a handful of sites that Opera 9 users can access and Opera 10 users can’t. If those sites don’t want the custom of clued-up web users, that’s their problem.

But there aren’t, and so we’re not. If you want to know why Opera’s “still in business” as you put it, it’s because their primary market is the mobile browser industry, not the desktop. Besides, and I’m sure many will agree with me on this – the main two impediments to Opera being adopted by many on the desktop are a lack of marketing/advertising and the fact that Opera was once NOT FREE – even in 7.5 you had to pay to remove the advertisements. That’s a pretty powerful bad taste to remove from one’s mouth if you know what I mean (even though Opera is now free – as in beer).