I'm glad you're still so positive. My impression is that the PUA tactics were given time and debunked, which is why the atmosphere is more pessimistic these days. Back then it was new and exciting, and the feeling was "Wow, could this work? This is going to work". But then it was shown not to.
Which is not to say all that information is garbage. Some of it is, but a lot of it is just good common sense life advice for living as men. But there is no magic pill.
I used to love Altavista, by the way. It was my first favorite search engine, until Google came around. Google is so much better, it's ridiculous.