Interesting take.. I love going to that site because I want to see new things that push the limits of the browser. I would love the opportunity to build some of the sites that are showcased there, just to try new things. I don't think these types of sites are "broken" at all. Most of them work very nicely in my experience and use clever ways to hide load time or other negatives. I wouldn't ever use most of the cutting edge ideas in sites I build commercially because the sites I build are for a more mainstream audience that probably isn't tech savvy, so I keep it to the basics, but the awwwards stuff is still very cool to me.

I think the broken stuff the tweet refers to is all the online publishers with floating video ads, 50 tracking scripts, bloated pages, zero accessibility, etc on a page for a 500 word article

Oh, those are impressive websites, don't get me wrong.

But I think that the intent and purpose in design matters. And awwwward website's purpose is pretty vacuous. The websites there are ad brochures. A single short sentence in huge font above the fold, a compelling image - the purpose there is to grab attention, while offering little information. Compare it with densely packed, more honest and less thirsty websites of the 90s and you'll see why a lot of people are nostalgic.

> I love going to that site because I want to see new things that push the limits of the browser.

Browsers are so hugely (over-)capable nowadays that anything that comes even close to "push[ing] the limits of the browser" has to be at least as huge and complex as, say, MS Excel.

99.9... Well, "five nines" ring a bell? -- percent of web sites are light-years from needing anything like that. Sounds like complexity for complexity's sake. Web wankery.