It was both awful when it showed up in the enterprise and amazing at unleashing creativity for many. Most young non-technical people I knew during its rise had regularly made Flash creations or even games, and deeply enjoyed the Cambrian explosion of games and animations for a few years.

I dunno, a whole subtree of the internet died and I’m not sure it really came back. It was a beautiful Galápagos Islands.

It was really meant for animation and games but got misused as a web GUI tool. I think it would've been fine to allow it anyway, and anyone who wants to build a GUI can just not use Flash.

For the most part, people are talking about games and animation, not text based websites.

Did you ever try one of those Flash-based room escape games? It was really amazing to lose yourself in the challenges and puzzles.