As a practictioner of fasting, I don't think that "modern" Ramadan has much to do with fasting anymore - at least, in the way I see fasting working for me. Reason being that at the end of each day of fasting, there is a very large amount of food being consumed, and I mean a lot. Fasting is about calorie restriction for sustained amount of time - modern Ramadan (based on the experience I had in Saudi, which is a very conservative country) is not really about restricting calories, but just shifting the time of the day in which A LOT of calories are ingested.
Still, it definitely gives you the opportunity to reset every year.
Personally, when I started to eat moderately when fasting, I started to feel much better. Previously, I would be very tired when breaking the fast... I would be so full that I wouldn't be able to do anything except lie down.
I think that the current trends are due to people nowadays seeing it like a mega celebration, and they see that eating a lot and feeling tired after is just a sign of that celebration. Ramadan is more than just fasting, but I am going off-topic.
By the way, there's a sunnah in Islam to fast Monday's and Thursday's. Some here may find it beneficial.
The health benefits of fasting aren’t about total calorie restriction, but ARE about shifting when you eat to allow your body to kick over into the fasted state for a period of time to get the benefits of that.
I practice a 24 hour fast once a week, for spiritual and health benefits, not to lose weight, and enjoy a very full dinner after the 24 hour fast.
Ramadan looks very much to me to be about fasting, at least spiritually.
I don't know if that was always the case in history of this religion, maybe in the past the night meal was simply a shared meal with the group, of normal size.
It seems that in your case and mine, we're seeing something that has more to do with symbolism and morals (no gluttony, more thoughtful days, sharing, empathy).
I agree with the basic premise that religious fasting is an often overlooked but beneficial practice in the modern era.
In reading about Christian monastics I've found that their fasting practices are, and were even in the middle ages, much less dramatic than they seem at first glance, except in relatively rare cases. For one thing, many fasts aren't so much "don't eat" but "eat somewhat less, but still quite a bit", and there are tons of feast days to counter-balance that. And even those rules are thrown out for older monks and any who are ill, of course. You look at their calendar and think "damn, that's a lot of fasting!" but then you read accounts by actual monks and more detailed sets of rules and find they did very little actual no-eating fasting, in the typical case, and many "fast days" still involve a lot of eating.
I think it would be more common to find a lay practitioner adhering to the first five precepts.
In India, for example, there are fasting days in a month and many have certain days of the week even where they fast.