How long ago? My color CRT TV took a good 10 s or so to warm up the tube before you'd see much/anything. But at least it responded instantly, so you could spend that time walking back to the couch instead of waiting for some stupid menu. Instant and trustworthy response is basically gone from most appliances. I think it's a combination of marketing (has to look high tech) and cost (touch buttons are cheaper than mechanically interlinked toggle buttons.

I still can't tell if my computer monitor is on or off because I don't know the weird LED flashing code it uses to communicate that (Holy crap! appliances use something like morse code to tell you important information about their state! How did they get so needlessly cryptic? If there's no picture, I have to check all the cables and push the power button a couple of times to see what happens.

Web programmers are as much to blame too. Show me a web video player that has play and pause buttons that always do what they say when they say it.