Yeah, tags were a big one.
There were less people to compete against. I've notice a significant uptick about the time podcast, YouTube and Joe Rogan started making things popular.
That combined with less decline in herd populations (out west, I don't do the eastern stuff). Something that is a common thing related in general to human encroachment. It's been happening (because that's when it started being monitored seriously) since the 70s.
Later, around 2006 on was a good time for bowhunting. All the tech started really booming. Carbon arrows were becoming mainstream, and bow speeds were in competition from manufacture to manufacture.
Clothes have all been about the same. If you hunt and spend like a week deep in the backcountry bivy style, you avoid cotton. Nothing revolutionary.
If you stalked animals in open country, like in this picture miles from any road, and were able to get into bow range in jeans and flannel, you got lucky. Especially back then, when range was even more limited then it was now.
Like, that deer had to be retarded, or depressed to not to see you and run, because these Muley's can see pretty good…and they don't pattern like whitetails.