I live on a really busy parish road and I noticed the same thing. The first 3 months of the COVID timeline were great. My company sent everyone home and we all worked remotely and the traffic on the road at my house dropped to almost nothing. It was glorious. I’m still working from home because my company sold the office building they owned and hasn’t built a new one. I can’t say the same for other companies because traffic is horrible in front of my house. The noise and the air quality are back to pre COVID levels of suck.
I definitely agree about the vibe being different in the mid 90s to the early 00s. Lots of passion and energy about the tech. I don’t think it’s all gone but it’s definitely nowhere near as intense.