Oh yeah, I feel you! I was also on DALnet, and saw the exodus to other networks, EFnet, IRCnet, Undernet, QuakeNet... But as you said, they just didn't feel "right". I.e. some of them had "weird-looking" services as opposed to the DALnet's ChanServ, NickServ etc... :-)

Do you remember "PHP-Nuke" craze, everyone was creating community portals where members were able to post news, polls, etc...

Good old times :)