Ermagawd, how many times. Wales would have qualified for the euros, old format way too, so even though it's easier now as you said, it made no difference to Wales qualifying.
Also, as someone else pointed out the overall team quality hasn't changed much from when giggs played, we've always had 3 or 4 good players and the rest making up the team. If giggs led and carried the team the same way bale has, we would have qualified for a tournament a while ago imo.
Well in the 2000 for example they had Italy, Denmark, Switzerland and Belarus in the group. 1 team qualifies and 1 has to play play-offs.
Then in 2004 -again with Italy, Serbia, Finland and Azerbaijan. They finished second and fell in the play-offs to a Russia side.
Then in 2008 - Germany, Czechs, Slovakia, Ireland, Cyprus, San Marino - 2 teams qualify and the Czech and Germans swept aside that group.
1996 - same group with Germany and Bulgaria - Germany the team that eventually won it and Bulgaria that were 4th in the world in the 94 WC.
That's probably closest to Giggs peak in terms of ability. Compare to 2016 where Wales were in a group against Belguim, Bosnia, Cyprus and Andorra with two teams qualifying directly and 1 advancing to play-offs.
So yeah it's a lot easier to qualify for the finals of the EURO in the current format. I agree with the team quality - they had Speed, Bellamy, Hartson etc.
It's no excuse, but it seemed Giggs was not arsed about it(as others mentioned) since they didn't have much chance of qualifying in the first place.