Depends on where you were in the 80s and 90s. If you were in America, the future EU, or Eastern Asia, for example, those were great times. If you were in Rwanda, Bosnia, or Afghanistan (The Soviet-Afgan war) I doubt many people call that peak humanity.
Dunno, my cousins' dad was a 17yo soldier. One can say it was a better time cause he was on the winning side, and now that has become the losing side.
Mass surveillance was more old-school, but governments were still pretty harsh.
They had Trump. He just was younger, Democrat and apparently popular.
They had AI in your spam mail.
Climate collapse ... again, where half my family is from, war broke logistics in the 90s, so to have heat at winter people would cut down trees. A lot of forest lost. But one can say it was a better time because "the world" cared more about civilians suffering than about forests. I suspect now climate activists would act differently.
Again, no climate crisis + no mass surveillance + cheaper housing = do not give a shit. Were it for me, 70s, 80s and 90s on a loop forever. You lose something from the loop? Tough shit, your problem, not mine.
Yuuup. Sorry, whenever I complained about climate change on Reddit I was just shrugged with "oh well, too late, you'll die", "muh China/India/feedback loops", "just move North". So, they give me back the climate, the economy and the freedom of the 80s and then I'll care again.
Fair answer. My point is that my frustration with the modern world is absolute and shit like this doesn't help, and I see whatever problems there might have been back then as irrelevant in comparison.