Interesting. I actually still see lots of posts that have lots of links throughout the article. Especially when an article is referencing other code, projects, plugins, articles, etc. I assumed you meant more about the death of 'blogrolls' that has occurred over the past few years because that IS what has died out, in my opinion (and for reasons I stated above).
As for the popup, stern words will be said to whomever turned that on. I didn't know it even existed.