The game has probably progressed a fuck ton since the last time you played. If you are confused as to why screen shots from the game from back in the day (2007) are posted it is because they are playing old school, which are servers released by jagex that are run by a 3-4 j mod dev team that at release were the way the game was back in August 13th 2007.
http://oldschool.runescape.com/oldschool_index
From release to now a lot has been added to Old School and all if it was added based on a polling system, like literally every update be it miniscule or big is polled before it gets developed/put into game.
In terms of the main game a whole lot has been in added that I couldn't summarize it all if i tried. Like really, here is a list of all the updates:
http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Update:Game_updates
Heres a list of significant updates and explained:
http://forums.zybez.net/topic/1550660-back-from-a-break-heres-what-you-missed-updated-070813/
if you wanna contact any of us ingame, my rsn is
'rsmv2you', antecus is '
anxe' and bored is
'the mean faggot pmod' but really it's 'Clooker'