Hmm, I graduated from college before the REALLY old days were over, apparently. :)
I don't mean to glorify USENET. The web based forums brought many cool new features -- you could post images that worked reliably, the Slashdot-style moderation stuff was a big boon, etc. I just meant to point out that the internet moves in cycles, and those cycles seem to lead towards newer technology and more centralized control.
I don't remember it quite that fondly.
I also remember the missing replies, broken threads, spam you couldn't really do much about, endless flamewars about top-quoting vs bottom-quoting, etc.
Plus the pace was just glacial - it could take hours for some posters posts to appear.
Maybe is was better in the REALLY old days - a bit of quick, non-exhaustive google groups searching shows my first usenet posts in June of 1997.