I don't necessarily agree that the 90's didn't have anything to it. You just need to look at more than just the bizarre fashions.
How often do you see flannel anymore? In fact, the whole grunge rock look? What ever happened to grunge rock, anyway? In fact, what ever happened to music in general? When I think of the 90's, I think of a lot of brand new bands that brought a new sound to rock, and even bands of the same genre sounded vastly different from each other. For example, both Nirvana and Pearl Jam are grunge, but can you really say Nevermind and Ten sound alike? Not at all. The artists were after their own sounds, not the sound that fit a specific genre.
I also recall the 90's as being a time when "kid shows" stopped being so God damn condescending. Mighty Max, like Transformers before it, was meant to be a thirty minute commercial. Unlike Transformers, the writer ended up changing the direction of the toys themselves, creating a new and original universe based on mythology, and even had at least one person die per episode (on average: some episodes had no death, other episodes had two people die). A show rated Y7 had death (speaking of, 90's introduced TV ratings). Beast Wars, meanwhile, revived the aforementioned Transformers with a much more heavy story and multidimensional characters, including good guys with bad tendencies (Dinobot and RatTrap). These same guys also made ReBoot, which I unfortunately missed out on. Let's also not forget the likes of Rocko's Modern Life, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, The Tick and Sam and Max, all shows that are enjoyable even today (partly because there are a lot of jokes in there that you won't get unless you are an adult).
The 90's is also when the Playstation made a radical change in gaming, where genres that were originally dominantly PC fell into console territory with often disastrous results, but it at least paved the way for today's world, where a game that's made for the PC has a 90% chance of also being released on Xbox 360 and/or PS3. Games also stopped being predominantly family friendly, as titles like Resident Evil hit the mainstream and showed you could also have a pretty good story in your game (remember, this is mainstream we're talking about, not games like System Shock that have barely touched mainstream awareness because of Bioshock's massive marketing campaign).
I will also always remember the 90's as a time where I actually liked anime. There was so much science fiction in that time, from the cyberpunk to the post-apocalyptic to the giant mechs to the simply bizarre. Anime was all about the sci-fi, and that's what sucked me in.
In comparison, the aughts are pretty disappointing when you look at those categories. Every musical genre from America sounds so much alike that they may as well all be the same band. Punk is not only hypocritical in that the look and style is a popular method of conformity, but all the bands sound the exact same. All the boy bands sound alike, the hip-hop, the rap, the metal, the generic rock...it all sounds so much alike that I can't tell any of them apart. It's not like going back and comparing Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and certainly not like comparing Yes, Styx and Kansas. At best you have to look underground or to other countries, but even then you'll be lucky (I love power metal, but aside from a couple of bands, most of them just want to play as fast as they can, a la the craptastic Dragonforce).
When I look at the children's shows available for my niece to watch, I'm overcome with grief. An excellent show like Invader Zim, fitting in the style of 90's cartoons that anyone of any age can enjoy, die while piles of idiocy like Spongebob thrive. Or how Futurama became canceled while the Simpsons has been allowed to fall deeper and deeper into a hole of crap. Adult Swim has gone from humorous shows to a bunch of webcomic rejects.
The aughts will be forever remember as the time Hollywood ran out of ideas, as well, as all the major films are based on a novel, comic, old television show, a remake or a revived sequel.
However, there's still plenty to remember the aughts for that aren't necessarily negative. It is truly the decade of the Internet, where websites like the Escapist themselves grow where in print they would not be able to. Communication between groups of people has grown at an alarming rate, allowing a major exchange of ideas. Adult Swim having shows like bad webcomics was mentioned, but for all the horrible comics there are also plenty of great ones that enjoy success they never would've gotten if it wasn't for the Internet. Social networking has changed how friends communicate and even organize (while I don't use Facebook's games and other applications, I make liberal use of sharing websites and pages that I wouldn't be able to easily share elsehow, as well as organize events with greater ease than usual).
Of course, I look at video games as improving in a lot of ways, too. While the Industry is still in some pretty bad practices, I can see new talent and ideas coming in to change things. Hell, when EA says "it's time we start doing things seriously and create some good games", you have to be amazed (especially when the end result looks as good as Dead Space does). Developers want to try new ideas, even the major ones, and push technology forward. While there's a lot of titles that aren't worth the disc they were pressed on, it's considerably better when you consider all of those SNES titles you never heard of that clogged the game store shelves. Really, the only difference between then and now is that the Internet allows even the crappy games a way to advertise and pretend they are top notch products.
Of course, because of the Internet, plenty of gamers are convinced to go back and play games they never even heard of before, such as Deus Ex or System Shock 2.
So, ultimately, I think there's a lot to remember the aughts for, as well as a lot to remember the 90's for. I'm still saddened, however, that the 80's didn't have the influence it should have had. I mean, seriously, fantasy films would be amazing in this world of high class CG (and I mean fantasy that is not based on a book, trying to ride the coat tails of LotR), and Iron Maiden and Megadeth could've been such better inspirations for metal than Metallica was.
...and sorry for the length of this post, which is ultimately an article in and of itself.
