I just meant it was a different time. We were all trying to figure this 3d shit out, it made seeing what others pulled off in challenges and collabs all the more awesome and inspiring. What was even cooler was watching some of the top dogs on the forums get together to start their own mod teams, some of which eventually blew up into something like the original insurgency mod for hl2 or project reality mod for bf2.
Now we've either been doing games professionally for 10 years on or decided to keep game dev as a hobby and do something else for a living. Everything's been figured out, it's not surprising when someone creates a dope map or an environment that looks good.
Though it seems now studios have lost the capability to create a good game, forget a great game.
Maybe mapcore studios would be able to rise to that challenge.