Yeah, while I hated so many designs, it was still great to see see what people were coming up with and the content wasn't posted for "likes" or fakes internet points. It was just stuff people wanted to share. There was also a lot of copying in those days. People would find a cool gif or background image on one site and add it to their own sites. There were all kinds of layouts too. The entire web felt very collaborative and experimental before everyone got corralled into corporate controlled templates and DMCA notices started flying around everywhere.
