Do Google results have to be so terrible? No, because here’s GMX, who licenses Google results, and their top 10 results for site:lucire.com. There are some framesets (which regular Google loves), but more of the pages in the top 10 are top-level and current.
One note: turns out some of the framesets were still used into 2004, not 2002 as shown above. Whichever way you look at it, Google does love the old stuff—but it is also capable of serving the pages you expect, i.e. top-level ones that the majority of pages, including the home page, link to. It just chooses not to for its own product.
Six current pages in the top 10 on GMX, versus just two on Google itself. Here’s why.