flash-navigation and sound-onmouseover

Has anyone else noticed the dramatic increase* in the use of flash in navigation bars?

This is strange, as virtually the only use that is made, is for sound effects on mouseover.
The rest of the page is raw html, as are the pages linked to...

jonathan chetwynd
http://www.peepo.com

*we are currently reviewing a large number of comercial music sites, and of the ones we are considering linking to, a very large number use them.
for instance http://www.shakira.com/english/mainframeset.html