CSS Zen Garden, which gained popularity around 20 years ago, was a pivotal platform for demonstrating the power of CSS in web design. It championed design principles that allowed developers to illustrate the capabilities of CSS in an inventive way. Recently, there's been a resurgence of interest in CSS Zen Garden, as older developers reminisce about the shift from traditional table-based layouts to more sophisticated and document-centric designs. Users noted the challenge in modernizing its philosophy in a landscape dominated now by rich media and frameworks like Tailwind CSS and CSS-in-JS, which have shifted the focus from pure CSS to component-based design. This blend of nostalgia and critique illustrates both an appreciation for foundational web design and a need for evolution in response to modern web development practices.