I feel like the main point of css zen garden was how, by maximizing your use of semantic HTML, you could separate the presentation from the content and operate on them completely independently.
While you can still do this to the extent zen garden does, it's really operating within the limits of css (i.e. css can do this, therefore I can create this type of design, not I want this type of design, therefore I need to write this css).
There are lots of style choices that require modifying the DOM directly to effect, and can't be done purely with CSS. I've seen discussions on W3C where it was like "Well if you add another div around this you can achieve this effect, so why do we need a new CSS property?". Stuff like inserting or swapping an image is simple, but swapping a styleable SVG is impossible because the SVG nodes need to be directly embedded in the html.
So you're forced to mix presentation and content structuring decisions at the HTML and Javascript levels and even some simple design changes require modifications throughout the stack.
On the other hand CSS is very capable these days and many designs, that actually are not flying air castles and take the medium into account, can be implemented flawlessly using only CSS and HTML.
Agreed. A lot of modern web design problems come from trying to force a medium to do something it was never meant for. If you work with the grain of HTML and CSS instead of against it, you can still build really flexible and beautiful layouts without needing to hack the DOM or pile on JS. zen garden was a reminder of that and it still holds up.
While you can still do this to the extent zen garden does, it's really operating within the limits of css (i.e. css can do this, therefore I can create this type of design, not I want this type of design, therefore I need to write this css).
There are lots of style choices that require modifying the DOM directly to effect, and can't be done purely with CSS. I've seen discussions on W3C where it was like "Well if you add another div around this you can achieve this effect, so why do we need a new CSS property?". Stuff like inserting or swapping an image is simple, but swapping a styleable SVG is impossible because the SVG nodes need to be directly embedded in the html.
So you're forced to mix presentation and content structuring decisions at the HTML and Javascript levels and even some simple design changes require modifications throughout the stack.