[KeyBoardG]

I do see a side of what you're saying. In those older days the web was a much simpler platform so figuring out what to do and what to click was easy. This was true in Windows too as MFC was the library of choice for UI meaning a lot of the software was easy to figure out also.

Today a lot more software and websites have broken the mold and come up with some really different(not siding better or worse because both exist out there) UX patterns. There aren't standards for web UI anymore that are practiced across the board.

I do disagree with your statement that the client should dictate how a site is presented, not the server. The browser should display the content in a standards compliant way. The days of buttons looking like windows buttons in IE and Mac buttons in Safari should be a thing of the past never to return.