I'd say that the fact that you think something thrown together in notepad 20 years ago can be comparable to modern web technologies just shows how little you understand what exactly modern web tech does or why it's useful.
Since then I directed development on a number of absurdly rich and powerful platforms across telecom and the financial world. We were leading the respective industries when everyone was pushing Java, Flash, XAML/WinForms, etc at various junctures (each coming and faltering). We had a better than native mobile "app" using web tech.
I was one of the early and vigorous public proponents of SVG.
These applications, going back up to two decades ago, demolish the overwhelming bulk of web apps people are working on today in design complexity, actual functionality, and so on.
Yeah, I have a pretty good notion about "modern web technology", and often it feels like farce. Like it's a parody and I'm left wondering if I should say something because I missed the joke. The amazing self-congratulatory praise about, again, trivial nonsense just boggles.