Wired was started in the 1990s, a time that was optimistic even by the standards of your generic "the past was always better" heuristic. It was so optimistic that they actually debated the merits of paying off the US national debt.
In the 1990s, Wired was not merely "infectious and enthusiastic". It was gullibly gung-ho, and ugly as hell. I used a heuristic: if something appeared on the cover of Wired, it was either a fait accompli, or going to fail within a year.
So yeah, 1990s Wired was genuinely different. But often not in a good way.
And not just Wired. It seems everything was more optimistic and exciting 10 years before whenever you’re reading this comment.