The static disappeared with the transition to DTV, not the switch away from CRTs. Analog signals can be "fuzzy", digital signals are either received or not.
Digital reception will start to store the received signal within a buffer, and the decoder will interpret the signal from within that buffer. With poor reception of a digital signal, the buffer starts/stops being filled. Once the signal is back, it starts filling the buffer again with data missing from when the signal was lost. The blockiness you are seeing is the decoder attempting to decode that incomplete data.
The difference between poor analog signal vs poor digital is just totally different. Analog was much more forgiving for receiving less than full signal strength. With digital, the signal stops, starts, stops; there is no partial reception of the signal. Lost packets are not re-transmitted like TCP/IP packets.
