X.org's X depends on hardware?

[Amn]

Ok, here is one for X gurus:

I am relatively new to Linux, but i do C/C++ programming for over 10 years now and know enough about internal workings of a machine hardware.

The thing is i dont understand, if Linux and it's application praise modularity, why does the lates X.org's X release state in "Features":

i965: Intel i965 chipsets (aka X3000) are supported in this release.

Does this mean, that previous release failed to work with the chipset, or does it mean that custom i965 optimisations are added? Why should X depend directly on the hardware when a graphics HAL is available? Isn't it the job of a graphics driver software to drive the screen at the lowest level of access?

Thanks.

[Vergil83]

I don't know about this particular case, but my bet is before that chipset was supported with the generic vesa driver. So I guess that would put it in the optimisation category (driver tailored just for). As for the second question, I am not quite sure.