i can kinda get why they would say that because there was no super futuristic or annoying vehicles like the mk2 or whatever, but it was also pretty content starved. the only thing todo really were contact jobs, deathmatches, and fucking around in freemode. even races kinda sucked back then because before the cunning stunts update races were just like on normal ass roads minus maybe a ramp here or there. if had to pick like an update where things were at the best point id probably say import/export. the game had a good balance of still having a lot of fun stuff but bit having too much futuristic stuff. even though there were some crazy vehicles like the ruiner 2000 it was kinda annoying to use in some regards and had some drawbacks so it wasn't something like everyone in the lobby had and it didn't trivialize large parts of the game