CSS Reset vs * wild card

Question

Why cant I just do a simple reset of:

* { margin: 0; padding: 0; font-size: 100% }

instead of:

html, body, div, span, object, iframe,
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre,
abbr, address, cite, code,
del, dfn, em, img, ins, kbd, q, samp,
small, strong, sub, sup, var,
b, i,
dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li,
fieldset, form, label, legend,
table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td,
article, aside, canvas, details, figcaption, figure, 
footer, header, hgroup, menu, nav, section, summary,
time, mark, audio, video {
    margin:0;
    padding:0;
    border:0;
    outline:0;
    font-size:100%;
    vertical-align:baseline;
    background:transparent;
}

Answer 1

First of all you can.

Answering the question: because you probably don't want to have all elements with specified parameters. For example you do not have inputs, buttons etc. there.

Answer 2

Maybe because type selectors have more specificity than the universal selector.

Or because this CSS reset doesn't want to match all elements, like inputs.

Answer 3

Applying all those styles to all elements would result in unanticipated styling. Please check out the following textbox, dropdown, and textarea reset with all your reset styles:

<input type="text" value="foo" />
<select>
<option>Foo</option>
<option>Bar</option>
</select>
<textarea rows="10" columns="30">foo</textarea>

http://jsfiddle.net/esm63r30/

Pretty bare!