In '02 I would expect it was better in the byoc since all the restrictions etc had not been put in place. If it was a normal lan party with everyone being able to see each PC, setup open games anyone could join etc it would be a lot better but locking things down as they are now with only being able to see the PC's at your table is like going to a mini lan with 23 people but in a room of 1000's.
There has been alot of conversation about this on the Unofficial quakecon forums. Someone is creating a website that will crawl through all the sub nets to find LAN games and post their IP's so that they can be connected to directly. The problem all started with the illegal file sharing that was rampant and actually why many people attended Quakecon in the past. At least that's what i keep hearing as the reason why it is the way it is.
I agree with you Renegade, but even with my limited understanding of networking, i couldn't imagine allowing 1000's of users complete access to everyone else's PC on a truely open network. Not even business have this type of access across their networks, and they have all the lock-downs they want installed on every machine.
It sure would be interesting if they said: "If you install this piece of software, you can have full access to the network." with that software being a tracking piece to prevent the file sharing. You know no-one would install it as it would be like Big Brother watching all your moves at the LAN...