Funny enough - when I was entering High School around 2002, paintball was in the middle of a big growth phase, and as part of it, the NCPA seemed to have enough traction that there almost seemed to be a chance that players might start to have a hope to get college scholarships to play ball.
Definitely relate to you about the arms race. Though I enjoyed the tweaks to my Autococker including the Eclipse E-Frame, by the time I got out of the sport in '04 or '05, Intimidators and the DM series really took it to the limit.
Technically they were "semi-auto" but were walkable up to 14-15 shots per second and in the X-Ball style play, people were literally going through cases of 2000 in single matches.
Insane price ramp. Crazy to think it all happened within the span of a decade.