The big "dream" of web-based technologies was to allow designers the freedom to do whatever they want. But doing this has a lot of costs, which we are all payin

The big "dream" of web-based technologies was to allow designers the freedom to do whatever they want. But doing this has a lot of costs, which we are all paying today. In the early days of GUIs, a group would design the OS, and everyone would just use that design through the UI guidelines. It was, in my opinion, the apex of GUI programming, because you could create full featured apps without the need of an experienced designer, at least for the first few iterations. Now, I cannot even create a simple web app that doesn't look crap, and any kind of web product requires a designer to at least make it minimally usable. And the whole architecture became so complex because of the additional layers, that it looks more like a Baroque church than a modern building.