Bear in mind that in 1999 they could not have done a modern-looking website even if their designers had crystal balls and could see what the web would evolve in

Bear in mind that in 1999 they could not have done a modern-looking website even if their designers had crystal balls and could see what the web would evolve into. The browsers did not support the fonts and styling, and most people were on dial-up so anything image-heavy would have been unusable.