I think about this from time to time, and i think it’s got to do with the pipeline of creation, distribution, and presentation. With Flash, you had an obvious piece of graphical software to create your thing, and when you were done you had one file you could upload anywhere that would accept it. Once it was uploaded somewhere, it could be served up as simply as an image, at the stated size, and it would work.

So it was all obvious and encapsulated.

I would like a generally agreed upon encapsulated html standard. Single-file sites that can be served as simply as media.