> No one knew what a Photoshop plugin to make fancy procedural patterns etc. was useful for. Certainly there was the crowd of people doing flyers for techno clubs/parties; but that was a tiny minority.

That was me. Kai's tools were invaluable to me learning graphic design (via doing flyers/posters for local raves), which then got me proper graphic/web design jobs and kickstarted my career. I look back on Kai's plugins/tools as iconic as Winamp, mIRC, etc for the era.