Yes, really. The original sentence was this: "Stressing scalability so much put somewhat in shadow what in the 80's was one of the most interesting meters of

Yes, really. The original sentence was this: "Stressing scalability so much put somewhat in shadow what in the 80's was one of the most interesting meters of software coolness [...]" This parses perfectly fine with this meaning: "The stress people put on scalability now has shadowed one of the most interesting measurements of software coolness in the 80's." I'm not saying that the sentence can't be improved, but that you're wrong when you say that it's nonsensical.