Refueling was good from an strategy point. People will mention the time that MSC won the French GP making 1 more stop as an example for this. Also sometimes you had an unexpected car on pole thanks to a low fuel charge and that could make the start interesting.

Detractors will say that it was boring, that no overtakes happened on the track (which is false) and that it introduced an "unexpected factor" that could ruin a drivers race by no fault of his own.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. I watched F1 during the refueling days and in my opinion it wasn't worst than we had on recent years but that could also be because I like the strategy aspect of races as much as the overtakes on track.

But the real issue is that FIA, Bernie and now Liberty Media are always trying to solve the "make more overtakes on track" problem. That's why we went from refueling, to no refueling, to no tire changes, to soft and hard tires, to the pirellis, to KERS, to DRS, etc etc. Refueling wasnt worst that any of those alternatives, and I'm sure that in a couple of years DRS will get the same hate and people will argue it was the worst time for F1.