The reason why I say this is misleading is because I'm unable to really understand what is the relevance of the increase in GDP per capita as it relates to the original question, which is: "what negative effect, if any, did the 2008 recession have"?

If you examine, for instance, Consumer Price Index, you'll see that it also grows exponentially. So to look at the GDP growth, without taking in account the equal exponential growth in cost of living, is not really answering the question at a level that people can grasp.

I don't disagree with your underlying premise, which is that the 2008 recession was nowhere near the magnitude of the depression. But I don't think that looking at exponential growth of GDP is the right indication of this.

Let me give an example: it is said that the biggest impact of the 2008 recession was carried by the poor population. This, in essence, is the thesis of The Big Short. If this is true, and the effect of the 2008 recession was to simply widen the disparity between rich and poor, then this would not be captured by looking at simple averages per capita.