Not sure what you mean by 'proper' - but flash video was a step-up from the previous era where websites gave you a choice of either RealVideo or Windows Media formats - the more quirky sites had Quicktime, and you had to have plugins for each [I'm dating myself here].

By virtue of being installed on 98% of all computers, Flash video was a de facto standard video target. One that could be played on Linux without getting into legal grey areas too!

Without Flash looming over them, IE would never have supported cross-platform video - this would have been Microsoft undermining the WMP format.

It was also a useful proof of concept of what could be done. Without Flash, would there have been the critical mass of users who wanted video in their browsers at all? Or the content?

I think that we would have gotten there eventually, but probably not as fast. The close - but not quite good enough - implementation of video in Flash was as much of a catalyst as it was a crutch to lean upon.

Bullshit. Without Flash or some other plugin there'd at best have been a different standard for each browser, with the only one worth caring about being whatever IE implemented.