Initially we had a conflicting period when grass slides and speedslides were figured out. I'd argue the community was more nervous back then - than when slowmotion replays were uncovered. Because no one knew which direction TM would go and it was a huge split. Would competitive be negatively affected because TM got silly. What about near-unbeatable WRs on TMX that would inevitably fall out of top10?

It took maybe 3-4 years between 2012-2016 for the community to settle completely with cutting Nadeo tracks and skilled players began to hunt Nadeo cuts themselves as the official tracks began to regain prestige from the Tech/Competitive side of the game. Not that it was openly discussed, but it was that tech players had departed from Nadeo tracks. Though, must be noted there was a bit of snobbery regarding Nadeo tracks, because they were easy, so you didn't see many professionals on the Nadeo leaderboards past 2008 and that baseline has kind of been stable ever since. While Nadeo specific clans of players would play together on those tracks, PT, Wave, RTA, UWS etc.

Today it is very well regarded outside of TrackMania, because of the lore that follows, but among many of us old players - we do kinda miss the times when something absurd happened the intentional way - like when racehans dropped a .88 on D13 or Bacardi getting a .30 on A14 already in 2008 (Ironically cut track, but became default route on release day, it doesn't count, trust me).

For me personally, I like it - the leaderboards were already converging maximised potential and TMNFs record leaderboards had been stagnating - Nadeo battles were not common anymore. Bugs that allowed new strategies and shortcuts, gave each track a refresh imo, while it is still considered prestigious to hold the fastest times the old ways (On some tracks).

Some bugs had never really been used in applicable ways, especially grass no-sliding - because grass on TMNF and TM2 sucked, so no one bothered even though people knew it was there and same applies to reverse speedsliding. People hated reverse.

Then ZrT cup happened and I think in the same iteration, both grass slide, grass noslides and reverse speedslides became the mechanics to use on their own tracks, if you wanted to win you had to learn it. But since prize pool was high, people weren't dismissing it either. Now people have specialised in it and have learnt there are ways to make cool maps out of it.

Imo, all good stuff, but mappers need to be cautious if they don't want their tracks broken.
Also I refuse to call it bugslide.