When I was last there some years ago the main strip along the beach was indeed like that. Not unlike the beach strip in most Thai beach resorts actually. Just a little nicer I thought. And the feeder road had the little family-run Thai restaurants that I mostly used.

Some first time tourists to Thailand actually like that mix. Some familiar things. And some different. Especially with kids.

One difficulty was that the beach itself didn't amount to much. I don't know how it is post-tsunami. We mostly took long boats to Rai Lai and out to the little islands for not much money, or the baht bus further down the coast.

Like I said it's somewhere I have recommended to friends. So I'm not not sure if you have changed my opinion or not. Although one of my Scandinavian friends did remark "Too many Scandinavians".