What a coincidence.

Casuals weren't the problem necessarily. The problem was a lack of balance and content. Nintendo exhausted themselves from the prior two years, that all they had in a show-able state was casual stuff. That, combined with E3's downsizing were what made it so bad. 

I'd prefer a bad show over no show 

The OP is a big Arlo fan I see. Anyway, I was there on this very forum back in those days. It was bad and everyone knew it. While 3rd party titles picked up in 2009 and 2010 I felt the Nintendo support was declining.

The reason for the decline is that Nintendo consoles need an amazing start. So Nintendo just throws everything at launch year to make sure such a thing happens. This is a good strategy as it gives 3rd parties a chance to pick up support later on. They have been using this strategy since NES. However, a Nintendo console suffers greatly later on because instead of Nintendo continuing that support they have to move on to the next console. After 2008 Nintendo had to shift gears to the 3DS which was announced in 2010. That's why the Wii slowed down a lot later on. It had nothing to do with "teh casuals"!

There is not much to learn here because Nintendo is already learning from this. Why do you think the Switch exists? To prevent the dreaded 2nd half that every Nintendo consoles seem to suffer (1st party wise). The Switch won't have a sucky 2nd half since its successor won't release until at least 2023.

E3 2008 in general showed how insignificant the event was becoming. I remember being so let down that year. I think Sony might have had the best showing but I can't remember. I do remember Microsoft's big reveal was that Final Fantasy XIII was also coming to Xbox 360. By then we had hearing so much about Final Fantasy XIII to the point where the announcement was almost meaningless. As for Nintendo, yeah, E3 2008 showed everyone that E3 performances are not reflective on sales at all. Another great example of this is Microsoft in 2010. Everybody hated their show that year, but Kinect made them a lot of money.

It was one of the worst if not the worst e3 shows of all time.

Yeah Kinect adventures sold like 20m (I think it was the best selling game that year) and it was the most notorious showing in E3 by miles mean while 2010 was one of Nintendo's best showings and sales that year slowed down, no wonder companies began cutting back on the event.

Yeah, I think Nintendo's decision to not have live stage events was smart. A lot of people who are nostalgic for the older E3 format don't seem to have very good memories of it. Most of the press conferences were 10% excitement and 90% boredom. In fact, the company that was usually on top was the one with the worst events. When Sony was on top with the PS2, they used to spend a good 10-15 minutes talking about sales and statistics. Nintendo used to do the same thing during the Wii-era. Nobody complained back then because it was expected. A lot of people also forget that the purpose of E3 was never to satisfy the fans. It was to satisfy retailers. This is because E3 was based on a presentation model that was put into place before live streaming on the internet was a thing. Fans never got to see E3 1995. They saw pictures of the event in magazines 2 months later. In fact, I would even argue that Nintendo's recent approach to E3 was more about reaching out to fans compared to what they used to do.

Nintendo's E32008 actually made me depressed, but it did lead Nintendo to what they do today which is a far superior way of doing things than the unnecessary stage-shows. I agree with PwerLlvlAmy, all of them should pre-record their conferences because they are mostly a bore at this point.

There's already no chance of a 2008 repeat with just the known games alone. What would be more interesting is discussing Nintendo's best E3's, as 2018 has a real shot of being just as good if not better.