At some point in the early 2000s fandom crossed over from being primarily rooted in a speculative fiction concept of furries, which required some kind of scientifically plausible origin (they were genetically engineered, they were aliens, there was some kind of convergent evolution, etc) to 'my character looks this way because I like how it looks'... to add to the chorus here in the comments, I felt that shark OCs were the most striking indicator of this change: no one was pretending they had evolved into that shape; their anatomy was fantastical and not only was that fine, but it was unnecessary to devote mental energy to why they look that way.
(this is furries as opposed to toons, of course <3)
To wit:
The cute, lithe, Sailor Moon looking twiglet - all blushes and boops and Valley Girl giggles,
or
CRUSHINATOR
As someone that's been in the online furry world since the early 00s (and also liked to go look at older furry stuff from even before that back then), I can confirm to have witnessed this evolution full time. And it's awesome.
Also, the fandom does go through various fads and stages in terms of popular styles and specific niche interests. I mean, look how the pone craze affected it for a while :v That kind of thing happens all the time. I saw someone do a like... art meme thing or something of their fursona in the style of various furry "eras" and actually tried my own hand at it like a year or more ago. Might see about uploading it here, though I cringe at the quality now, heh. Or maybe even re-do it.
It's a fun concept, everyone should try it!
Sorry for going off on such a tangent, but I wanted to show what I was talking about in the last post. It's more of a general style thing than anything, but I feel like they do associate vaguely with certain eras and fads. Got one more at add after this but apparently Cohost only allows four images per post, dagnabbit. (Also in case it's not obvious, this was before my most recent fursona redesign, though I guess it's not really relevant here anyway xp)