There was little or no evangelism for a particular language/framework/database/stack. People just trusted you to pick the right tools to get the project done, without feeling the need to insist you look at the latest flavour of the month thing out there.

But mostly, I miss the fact that 20+ years ago, programming was still considered a professional, white collar role that engendered respect from the entire organisation. Nowadays, I feel that most coders are lumped together with "support people" and are considered nothing more than replaceable factory line blue collar workers.