I don't understand why people say Old maple was so much better

I recall being connected overnight on a regular basis (just before/after 3rd Job was introduced). Now I'm lucky if I can stay on for a few hours before disconnecting. I do think the community as a whole was more intelligent, but then that can be said of almost any community made up of early adopters. There were what, 200,000 accounts total perhaps in gMS around then compared to the <large number here> now?