My memory of back then is vague, too much tea and bad puns, but I remember the old server gradually failing and it taking more and more effort by the then admins to keep it creaking along (with regular downtime).
From memory the server at the time was a K6-2 350 with a whopping 16mb of ram or something similar, managed by Eyedot.
I think this was the server in question in all it's creaking glory
The nuke certainly ruffled some feathers, and I seem to remember there were some issues with the number of people flocking to register their accounts again.
Frond memories of the Seti team Stomping various other groups, the OCUK Stompmonster (IIRC declared a fire hazard by the spoilsports at the insurance company, I mean it was only a stack of about 20 overclocked bare computers left running 24/7), the fun and games as the forum was bought back online and it seemed like there was weeks of tweaking to get it "right".
I sometimes wonder what happened to a number of the "old faces", so it's always nice to see someone posting that I've not seen for a while.
Personally not a great deal has changed for me, except i'm less nocturnal, my DVD habit is now a Blu-ray habit and the small pile of unpainted models is now several large stacks of unpainted models that are taking over the garage...