I think you overlooked about a decade where we&#x27;d moved well beyond slightly annotated text but hadn&#x27;t yet entered the era of framework dominance. The Web was a smaller place then, but IMHO a much more interesting one in terms of trying out different designs and interaction styles.<p>As for productivity vs. possibility, I certainly don&#x27;t dispute that productivity is one place where the money is[1]. However, that doesn&#x27;t mean there isn&#x27;t also room for innovation, and it certainly doesn&#x27;t mean there&#x27;s no money in doing things better than what you can achieve with Bootstrap, Angular, and a couple of junior developers who don&#x27;t know much else. In an increasingly monotone and commoditised technology field, more interesting and&#x2F;or effective presentation can certainly be a USP.<p>[1] I might question how sustainable that productivity proves to be over the longer term with many framework-heavy projects, but that&#x27;s a separate issue and probably not worth getting distracted here.