I'm not sure what you are referring to. 4k/64k have been around for a long time, close to 20 years. Demos are generally "anything goes" and for anything else there are usually a "wild compo".
I remember demos on Ataris, Amigas, and early PCs, 286s, 386s. Back then there were no scene-imposed limitations, because the hardware was seriously limiting what you could do, and the awesomeness of demos lay in overcoming the crap hardware.
But when hardware stopped begin crap, when you started getting hardware accelerated graphics, when you could do mp3 playback in realtime, it got too easy to make something pretty, and less awesome.
If the demo scene had been about making pretty things, they would have just continued using the new hardware, but since the most important thing has been overcoming difficulties, making something pretty DESPITE the limitations, making something awesome, you know they value the challenge most.
And that is hard to communicate to regular people, because they can only value the prettiness of a demo, and that limits the popularity of it.
But when hardware stopped begin crap, when you started getting hardware accelerated graphics, when you could do mp3 playback in realtime, it got too easy to make something pretty, and less awesome.
If the demo scene had been about making pretty things, they would have just continued using the new hardware, but since the most important thing has been overcoming difficulties, making something pretty DESPITE the limitations, making something awesome, you know they value the challenge most.
And that is hard to communicate to regular people, because they can only value the prettiness of a demo, and that limits the popularity of it.