Is it my impression or is there a distinct trend towards using a combination of Flash and HTML, particulary on homepages, where mission-critical elements (e.g. navigation) tend to be in HTML and the 'flashy' parts are done using Flash (usually with a fair degree of sideways movement involved?), presumably with an auto-detect to serve up a GIF or JPG if Flash is not present.

This is not only true of some of the larger design agencies (http://www.digitas.com/ , http://www.marchfirst.com/ , http://www.agency.com/ , http://www.tribalddb.com/ etc.) but also big software companies (Netgenesis http://www.netgenesis.com/ and not surprisingly Macromedia, among others) and people like Media Matrix (http://www.mmxi.com/ ) and even Andersen Consulting
(http://www.ac.com/ )

Is this the ideal combination of usability/updateability and the much-coveted 'wow' factor clients, in particular the marketing and brand people, often want...?