Agreed. When the web technologies were more simple and rudimentary and HTML page hosting free and easy for beginners (e.g. geocities), it took very little to start writing HTML, adding some tiling background images, gifs and midis to express yourself. The variation in website look and feel back then was extreme.

Myspace then Facebook (plus forums) obviated the need to build your own site to express yourself online, and disdain for "poorly designed" sites, i.e. general snobbishness, I think discouraged people from messing around. I love that old web! You can still do something similar on Google Sites or similar, but of course it's more constrained.