Did you reply to the correct comment? Because nowhere do I say I'm nostalgic or it was a panacea.
I don't remember HTML 3.2 being such a problem (I wasn't around for HTML 2.0) because either people didn't do such complex things with their sites, or they didn't redesign much.
I did enjoy how simple publishing documents online was back then, and I'm nostalgic for that. Though definitely not for dial-up internet!
The reason you're remembering HTML 3.2 being nice is that you're remembering a period when people didn't try to do anything complicated. Using tables for layout had nothing to do with HTML 4 and everything to do with the web becoming more mainstream.
The shift that made HTML the mess it is today isn't technology but target audience and sponsorship. The early web was mostly hobbyists and academia, people who didn't care much about layout and were fine with just having a way to make something bold. The equivalent of people writing their blog posts in markdown these days.
I'm saying you're being nostalgic because you claim that there was a point when XHTML was about semantics and not presentation. That time never was. It's true that today it's easier to use HTML for presentation than back in the day, mostly thanks to CSS and the DOM, but what held HTML back initially wasn't technical.
That said, there were numerous progressions and many of them overlapped. Flash and Java applets were infinitely worse than the interactive blobs of web technologies we have today. Table layouts were followed by a second semantic renaissance led by the CSS Zen Garden (which for the first time really popularised the idea of separating markup and presentation).
I don't remember HTML 3.2 being such a problem (I wasn't around for HTML 2.0) because either people didn't do such complex things with their sites, or they didn't redesign much.
I did enjoy how simple publishing documents online was back then, and I'm nostalgic for that. Though definitely not for dial-up internet!