When I joined Gaia, it was a very plain front page with a small animated gif of a rock puppy shaking its head. When I joined, Leon and Rena walked me through the setup. Then I browsed Ian's shop and Sasha's shop. I was sure that I would never save enough for even one of the pretty kimonos in Sasha's shop. xp Now I own all of them.
There were also constant database errors. But the mods/admins had an amazing sense of humor. The databases were named, so you'd get messages like "There has been an error with the braaaaaains database" "error with the sushi database".
People often refer to those days as "the good old days", and while there is something nostalgic about that time and how small the community was back then, all the improvements they've made are amazing. Now we have so many more items that come in on a regular basis. We have so many more ways to interact, and even more games to play. 3nodding Nope, these aren't "the good old days" anymore, they're the exciting new chapter for Gaia.