Video game emulators in the 90s: Everything's held together with duct tape, and dear god, does it feel that way while you're playing it. In fact, the most technically advanced part is probably the custom UI. Regardless, you're going to stick with it no matter what because what other options do you have? Also, the emulator was put together by, like, three people, and it's named after a weird in-joke that absolutely nobody is going to understand years from now.
Video game emulators in the 00s: You like plug-ins? Because everything runs on plug-ins now, and the plug-ins themselves run on a billion options and special fixes you have to fiddle with every now and then. The graphical plug-ins, despite being noticeably distinct from one another, never look quite right. Still, this is a marked improvement over the 90s, although still pretty unnecessarily janky. (If your emulator was made in the 90s, by the way, it's almost certainly merged with a rival emulator by now to make something half passable.) Also, you're using DaemonTools to run SSF because somehow it's still a better emulator than Yabause.
Video game emulators in the 10s: Oops all Retroarch.