Those programs are still around. The current favourite among PC builder is snappy driver installer. It is actually more useful now than a couple of years ago be

Those programs are still around. The current favourite among PC builder is snappy driver installer. It is actually more useful now than a couple of years ago because a couple of major vendors like Intel have decided that it's a good thing to purge all drivers of EOL products from their official website. And yes I can definitely echo your experience. When I first installed Mandriva Linux in 2003 it was quite a shock to see everything work out of the box on my 2001 computer.