It's not Chrome's fault people can't code external links right.
People shouldn't have to specify which links are external and which aren't, it should be inferred from the URL being accessed. In the rarer cases where the server is saying to open an external link in the current tab or an internal link in a new tab, that should be specified in the HTML. For the people that want specific global behavior. i.e. all new tabs to be opened in current tab, that should be a configuration option in the browser.
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People shouldn't have to specify which links are external and which aren't, it should be inferred from the URL being accessed. In the rarer cases where the server is saying to open an external link in the current tab or an internal link in a new tab, that should be specified in the HTML. For the people that want specific global behavior. i.e. all new tabs to be opened in current tab, that should be a configuration option in the browser.
I think you're confusing links and tabs. I think you're trying to throw a lot of extra logic into the browser that doesn't belong there.