Some of the improvements on the list are non-issues best described as cultural differences. Consider:

…not making a dozen phone calls playing Phone Tag, to set up something as simple as a play date

Well this is why hardly anyone was bothering with setting up play dates back in the day† and were letting kids roam. Different culture facilitated by poor connectivity and scarcity of content.

† The title says the 90s but many references in the text go back to 1980s.