I think what Matt is trying to say is that your memory of what Google was like in 2000 could be inaccurate. So he's demonstrating what Google was actually like in 2000.
Of course you were impressed and satisfied with Google back then — it was so much better than the alternatives. I'm sure you would have been just as (perhaps more) satisfied if 2011 Google existed in 2000. We've had 11 years to pinpoint the deficiencies of Google. Couple that with 11 years of rapid progress on the internet — we just expect more now.
What's confounding to me is that there's an obvious solution to Google's biggest problem (spammers and scammers):
1. Allow users to individually block URLs and domains on a permanent basis.
2. Accumulate massive amounts of data regarding blocked URLs/domains (a good quality indicator)
3. Integrate this data into the PageRank algorithm