> if you are on a high DPI display, chrome just looks awful
I'm fairly sure this is no longer the case. Chrome is high-DPI aware on Windows now, and it uses DirectWrite for font rendering, the same as IE. It just can't display these characters for some reason.
Nope, the UI got an update too. It renders at high-DPI on Windows. Chrome on a high-DPI machine looks exactly the same as on a low-DPI machine, except sharper. It used to be plagued with issues, but I'm fairly sure they're all gone now. DirectWrite isn't perfect. It still has weird hinting and kerning at high-DPI with some fonts, but it's better than GDI.
I find Chrome better than IE, actually. IE ignores my DPI settings and scales pages to 250%, so everything looks too large. Chrome renders correctly at 200%.