Their staying power is actually quite impressive. A lot of graphic designers were just getting their head around Flash in 2000, and that helped drive sales of books on interactive design as well as Flash tutorials. Flash books sales will continue to be strong in 2001, especially sales of advanced books for hardcore Flash users and ActionScript programmers. It is getting harder and harder to attract customers and keep their interest. As the Web becomes more marketing-driven and the bandwidth increases, Web sites will look more and more like TV and print advertising.
Clients have a lot of input because they hold the purse strings.
And they're loosening those purse strings because they believe Flash will sell more goods and services to their users. But function and service need not be in conflict with design. You're really bemoaning poor design, which isn't exclusive to the Web. Although plain text may download faster than graphics, vector graphics are very compact and a picture can be worth a thousand words. Therefore Flash can be more functional, or at least more efficient than text in communicating certain content.