Re: "you might expect The Register to illustrate this story with an animated .gif of its own"
I see no Hero Images anymore since I installed the FF plugin "Remove this Permanently" so you can hide bits of websites you don't like.
Now, if I could only find a way to stop the divs with fixed position staying in place when I scroll. I absolutely detest websites that 'permanently' fix logos/menu navigation to your browser window so they stay where they are when you scroll down, often obscuring the bits of page you're reading/looking at and almost always making the browser view window smaller, but the absolute worst thing about them is when doing pinch-zoom on FF on Android they still stay in place but get bigger and take up so much more of the viewing area.