There was something magical about landing on some random page and being presented with a massive flash loading screen that lasts longer than a minute or a java applet. Find a random link on irc and end up on some black website with an exotic loader was better than Christmas morning for me. The web is so exactly as one would expect now, and it's incredibly boring. Sure, java applets, flash, dhtml, tables and frames were a hodgepodge toolbox, but at least the web was interesting to explore... I feel grateful to have gotten to be a teenager through the 90s actively involved in building web stuff. Not sure if it's just nostalgia and everyone feels this way about their teenage years but the never ending exploration into tech, computers, the web, was enthralling...palm pilots, modems, ram, mp3, irc, wow... even thinking about it today gets me excited for that time.