The main difference I noticed was that back in 1987 the streets were covered in dog excrement, but now they're not. Perhaps related to this, there weren't people wandering around with two large, vicious dogs on a lead (which seemed quite common last time I was here).
There don't seem to be as many sex shops as there were, but there are more drugs shops. I don't know about rock & roll shops... The drugs were particularly pervasive, with cannabis lollipops for sale in corner shops, that kind of thing. The most irritating thing about all the sex and drugs from my point of view is that it's nearly impossible to buy T-shirts that don't make some reference to one or the other; that's going to make it hard to buy prezzies for my kids.
Oh, while I remember: the answer is socks.
Here are a couple of photos I took on my wanderings yesterday:
There are enough gay-specific gadgets to stock an entire shop? Wow!
This next one shows a shop that's part of a chain:
That's probably not the best place to stand, mate.