Yeah, god, I long for the days before Google Maps, too. Who needs that slick slippy interface when you can endlessly click arrows at the corner of a static image?

That to me sounds like you're saying cars would be better off without wheels.

Suppose that's what they did with HTML5. What would happen then?

Nobody would use it. Proprietary solutions to do what WebGL and other HTML5 features do would pop up, and people would use those.

Instead, what we've got is a situation where you can actually turn off Flash and use the majority of websites without any degradation.

It is a long term evolution. Eventually, application developers will build directly atop the accelerated graphics layers, freeing the browser to be just a basic virtual machine, and leaving HTML rendering to be just another app built atop that machine. But these things take time and there is a lot of legacy cruft that needs to work in the meantime.

Why people keep saying this kind of stuff?

For one, whatever Tim Berner's Lee envisoned, the web is not the simple mostly textual medium it was in 1993. Get over it.

Second, for people to love reading text on the web, there was never a better time than the present. Lots of long form text by bloggers and content providers like Medium etc, combined with a widespread interest in improved readability and good typography. Plus, the fashion/preference for "minimalist" designs also helps putting emphasis on the content, even better than some 1997 site with animated gifs and black text on grey.