It is rather unfortunate that there was a couple years there that FF lagged behind Chrome, it is really still having lasting impact on the brand.
That said, the developer tools (both Firebug and the newer native ones) are really just not on par with Chrome now. I know they have people working on it, so I am looking forward to what they come up with.
The fact that there are both native and Firebug developer tools still baffles me- if they'd concentrated on one of the two they might be a lot more competitive with Chrome.
They're making a push to work on the native tools now. The native tools in Nightly are actually pretty usable now, though still not as advanced as Chrome. It'll come, I'm sure. :)
That said, the developer tools (both Firebug and the newer native ones) are really just not on par with Chrome now. I know they have people working on it, so I am looking forward to what they come up with.