Just to clarify, I'm certainly not saying it wasn't a very hard time, or that many people weren't hurt and truly struggling and suffering. I just never considered, or heard anyone else say they considered, that it might be a fundamental shift in the way things were done.
Like Spartana, I lived in SoCal. My DH is military (which means he and his peers were basically entirely insulated from employment concerns). I worked at a university (their non-profit/research foundation) and we couldn't keep ourselves fully staffed. We were always hiring. I was there two years and I don't think there was every a time we weren't actively looking to fill empty desks. Our home, purchase in 2004, lost probably 25% of its value (from purchase price, more from the high). We had upgraded rom a home we owned 2001-2004, on which we did well so we had a lot of equity, and more importantly, we didn't have to sell even when we left. Our neighborhood was moderate, older townhouses, and I think there was only 1 foreclosure, likely because there were longer term owners, not a lot of moving, and because most people probably didn't stretch to get in to these homes. But the people we know who got weird loan products in order to be able to afford giant new construction with upgrades did often have yard after yard with "foreclosure" or "short sale" signs. As I said, I have friends and acquaintances who lost jobs and homes, and it was awful to see, but it never felt like anything more than a regular ol', very bad, recession, whatever that means. It never felt like we weren't going to recover and eventually get back to business-as-usual, as a nation (not that it wouldn't have long term, serious repercussions for individuals).
It was just interesting for me to read here several people saying they felt this might be different and more than just a severe, recoverable downturn, as that perspective was entirely absent from my radar until it came up here recently.