If "there/their" was the lone anomoly in an otherwise consistent and practical linguistic system, I would concede. But consider "duel/dual", "I/eye", "dear/deer", "brake/break", "male/mail", "rap/wrap", "or/ore/oar", "wood/would" (And wtf is the "l" doing in "would"?! Being extraneous and confusing, that's what!) There are dozens of the damn/dam things. Then there are the ones that go the other way, like "bass (fish)/bass (low tone)", and "wind (air current)/wind (to turn)". If a word is spelled the same way as another word, it should, logically, sound the same, every time, no exception. Words that are spelled differently should sound different, every time, no exceptions. All phonetic rules should be easy to follow and should apply to every word without exception. English is needlessly difficult. No defending it, really. It doesn't even sound melodic, like Italian. It's a laborious and cumbersome language with little redeeming value other than it's the one I know.
