I feel the same way. I was working on NN research in the 2000s and spent all my time trying to optimize the performance to deal with non trivial data sets. I got as far as working on GPU implementations around 2008 before I moved on to other subjects, but seeing these results now is incredibly validating. There was no shortage of profs and grad students that scoffed at me at the time. I still kick myself for not keeping up with it