I don't believe consumers secretly yearn for largely text based pages, and that's part of the reason why web development has become so complicated. The fact is, 'you' may believe that a simple HTML page will suit > '90%' of consumers, but until you can prove that objectively, then you'll find that there's a whole industry dedicated to determining what really does suit consumers better.

And it's a multi billion dollar market now.

This is merely my opinion, so take it for what it's worth, but I think it's a reasonable answer to the question in the thread title. Also, why is there so much confusion over tools? Probably because there is so much confusion about what people do and do not like in a webpage / web application.

There's more art to software development than many practitioners would like to admit.