You're not talking about the web, you're talking about authoring tools. There are (or were) plenty of modern Flash successors; it's just that most people don't use them when you can open a game engine and target the web that way.
> You're referring to the mid-late 2000s
Things like hidden iframe hacks to load JavaScript were a thing as far back as the late 90s, and table layouts have existed as long as HTML tables have.
> You're referring to the mid-late 2000s
Things like hidden iframe hacks to load JavaScript were a thing as far back as the late 90s, and table layouts have existed as long as HTML tables have.