I'm partial to 90s, due to how FPS games had lot of exploration elements in their level designs, which started to disappear with later "cinematic" linear corridor shooter approach, which was, from my POV, very detrimental for the genre in the long run (luckily, there were still games in 00s that preserved that sense of exploration and later linear wide and open world FPS games made up for it to a degree).

Yeah, FPS started like maze shooters, find the exit to the next level. Then Half-Life pioneered the cinematic linear shooter which progressed into set piece and wave shooters. Far Cry was an exception making it all open world, followed by STALKER and Fallout 3.

But I'm more partial to the dumbing down of the speed and play those later FPS more like cinematic adventure games than enjoy the shooting mechanics, which just feel slow. Hiding behind a wall to recharge, cover shooters, is what killed my interest in the shooting part. Chest high walls everywhere. They also became very predictable, a wide open space with lots of chest high walls, I wonder what will happen... not. Exploration / surprise went out the window. And of course added RPG and survival elements also distracted from the shooter part.

I would like to add to SvennoJ. That after late 90’s early 00’s the first person shooter genre became kind of stagnant. No more real (or very small) innovations, what innovations there are are superficial, the innovations that we hoped for never really came to fruition (like fully destructible environments). 

This is why I and a fair share of people, that have been around since Wolf3D, consider late 90’s and early 00’s the golden age of FPS. 

I also want to give a little love to 2016, which I consider a great individual year for first-person shooters.

Doom, Overwatch, Titanfall 2, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. 

I know people are still a little salty about Infinite Warfare, but I think it may just have the best single-player campaign in the series.

I think aim assist is probably mostly just compensation for the inferior control method rather than intentional dumbing down. That said, I do think having an analog stick is mostly an advantage for movement, but it's definitely a disadvantage for aiming. Unfortunately there are no popular options for analog movement with mouse controls, so that control scheme is probably not well supported in practice.

As the person who brought up the matter, I don't object to this at all. I don't have much experience with console shooters due to my dislike of the control method, so I can't really speak much about them. I just find it curious that it would seem that for some reason or another, most replies to this thread seem to prefer earlier shooters. As an anecdote, I like both old and new Wolfenstein games, and while the most recent games in the series have been good too, I do prefer the older ones. I think it might have something to do with the snappier controls, but it's been a while since I've played any Wolfenstein games, so I could be remembering the more recent ones incorrectly. I do know for certain that the older ones definitely had very snappy controls though.

So far, of all the FPSs I’ve played, both on computer and on console, having a toggle between running (fast movement), walking (slow movement) and walking crouched along with 8 movement directions have been enough and having analogue movement has offered no form of advantage nor been implemented to matter. 

VR ;) (although you said no popular options, I wish VR was popular ugh) 

I also don't find analog control for movement at all advantageous. It's needed for twin stick to use side ways movement for fine aiming or to compensate for the slower turn speed running around corners. Yet with KB+Mouse just 4 movement directions are fine, preferably with instant start/stop, no sliding nonsense. In VR with analog movement I'm mostly compensating for the annoying "move in the direction you're looking" control scheme. My ideal is having a neck, analog control rotates the body independent of head movement.

I see you have not played Metal Gear Solid V on PC, although to be honest, that's the only game where analog controls for movement are particularly useful - and even, I'd rather play MGSV with keyboard and mouse for vastly superior aiming. To elaborate a bit on MGSV: there's basically toggles for too fast to stay silent and silent but too slow to be able to get anywhere in time. If I recall correctly, they're not even useless speeds, so it's not like either should be replaced, and having even more different toggles would be quite unusual.

Anyway, having that extra bit of control is superior in general, even if it doesn't matter much in practice.

In most cases, VR is more like an entirely separate mode rather than a control method. I guess that's a fair point though.

I see we have another that hasn't played Metal Gear Solid V on PC.

I wish VR would be treated like a control method rather than forcing body inventory, miming actions and opening every drawer into the gameplay! Hence I enjoy Aeon of Ruin so much!

What does MGS V do differently with analog controls than just having 2 or 3 different speeds? TR 1 on PC already had holding shift down to walk. (I haven't played MGS V at all, have it somewhere, never got to it)

I've had little time to explore VR games so far, but I would certainly be open to seeing more VR support in games, including different treatments like you said. I guess price is the main factor hindering VR adoption, but the nausea issues must not help either.

I elaborated on MGSV a bit more in my response to the other quote in my previous post, but basically being a stealth game, the amount of noise you make matters a lot, and it just happens that noise-wise the sweet spot for approaching people from behind is between the speeds allowed by keyboard controls. If I recall correctly, the speeds supported by the keyboard controls aren't useless either, but the game would really just benefit from more control in movement speed. I think I learned this only after playing the PS4 version a good while after I'd played the game originally on PC.