I would concur with that.
You were reading ARS in '95? I'd just started around then, and, for all intents and purposes, that's when ARS did 'take off' and there was certainly a paradigm shift; what with the new people, especially the Subgenii contingent who arrived after the raids and RMgroup etc.
There are any number of 'been here since the beginning' types who then recused themselves into whining about the 'good old days', but, I think between '95 and '99 were the golden years of ARS. More 'action' than you could shake a stick at
I suspect that a lot of the 'Good Old Days' nostalgia is delusional.
Zinj