At the time it was released, Inferno R1 was good because it had so many new ships, which, at the time, were relatively high-quality. At the time, stuff in Aldo's reciprocity modpack were considered legendary. And Aldo actually liked his nightmares. You will realize, if the FS2 community is still around, that some of the really good MVP models released today will be ****, and we'd all have real-time reflections, shadows, working decal affects, geomodding, etc. Okay I'm exaggerating here, but you get my point. The ships were almost retail standard. And there were so many of them. At the time, the aim of making a good campaign was chucking loads and loads of ships into your modpack. Those were the days of Reci and OTT.
As for the storyline, it was going to get better, but the canceled it. Initially, there was going to be a big rebellion with both Terrans and Vasudans on their side, a completely new species and the return of the Ancients.
Of course, standards today are much higher, and a good campaign is not so much chucking lotsa models in as making HTL models, normal maps, shine maps, glow maps, etc.
So what you're doing is comparing 2003-era graphics and content to 2008-era standards.
