Fair point. I didn't mean to imply it was an intentional design choice, just that it was "selected for" by the "nature" of the platform (ha!). And with regard to "beauty", I just meant that it was almost elegant in a way that modern design tries to do away with.
For instance, if a site didn't have a proper search function, but had a pretty logical URL scheme, you could often find what you need by trying a few permutations in the address bar. The limitations of the system meant web "designers" (I'm using that term loosely) had to build fairly organized and unintentionally "Brutalist" sites if they wanted to be used by any large number of people.
Hope that made sense, I'm still waiting for my coffee to kick in.