Yeah idk if its nostalgia or wut.

In my head, the sales were much deeper like you say, but I could be wrong.

I also miss when the sale would start and there'd be a minigame or some type of event. They've really been streamlining a lot of stuff though I think to reduce network traffic maybe, or maybe they haven't had the time for events when they are redesigning their whole client and steamos and stuff.