The concept of using RTP to send media through SDP was very new at this time; I had not heard about it before but found out later they actually got their first client (Google Talk) with rtp support! So you can see how far we've come already since then :) There were also some issues when running certain browsers over older versions or even windows operating system due to lack of compatibility between them which made things hard sometimes - there wasn't much i could do other than suggest switching from one version/browser if needed because most users would be OK otherwise.
You don't need anything else like flash player installed unless your hosting server supports Adobe Flash Player so its good all rounder solution compared to old Skype where only specific clients worked flawlessly while others struggled without needing additional plugins etc. Not really sure what benefit people get by trying VoIP.