I think that PHP was definitely “more approachable.” Also, it's easy to conceptualize the notion that “the right|easiest thing to do is to just mix the SQL right in there with the HTML, since all you're really doing is CRUD.”

“Easy to conceptualize,” “easy to deliver release 1.0” ... and utterly impossible to maintain as things change. Two or three years out, the app is $DEAD $BEEF. Everything's so tightly coupled together that you can't change either the presentation or the data-structure without starting over.

I'm not sure that it's really PHP's fault, though, so much as the (lack of) experience of the programmers... And I'm sure that there must be some “dazzlingly good” PHP out there. I just haven't seen any yet.