[conductr]

I think my experience has been similar. There's a couple reasons I can think that explain it;

- Resolutions improving/increasing has made multiple windows per screen feasible, in past you pretty much had to do full screen and toggle windows to multitask

- Mouse/scroll support followed. I can scroll on an inactive window these days. In past, you had to toggle and put focus on the window to be able to scroll, meaning you had to toggle windows to multitask

- Multitasking has become so multi. I am engaged in different apps/windows and need to watch them. I might have open a video on an eighth of my screen too just to watch something as I work. The only app I can think that came close to this in the past was AIM.