@Blackheart - I said 2k ladder not 2300 ladder. There is a world of difference between the two as you well know
You are saying skill when it comes to the very top of the ladder. I was saying skill as a general statement. I mean, look at Zock, the dude is a beast. Has been and always will be. Zock could beat me 10-0 then and 10-0 now, after a brief unrusting. His gameplay analysis videos still hold up today as hands down the best 'how to play faf' in terms of decision making. Its just really hard to compare top level skill in a game that only ever has 1-5 players at a time being truly dominant.
I am just stating that on average, most of your players these days do much better then their counterparts from the early days of faf. I don't really care how much of that is due to game sense/decision-making skill or how much of it is due to better builds/meta/UI/hotkeys/eco balance, I stand by the fact that for all but the top 0.1% of faf, the players are much improved. The fact that back then I could be as high rated as I was with such a limited skill set illustrates as much. But to your point, that is also why I was never at the top level of faf.
Maybe instead of using the term skill I should be saying gameplay or relative strength. 1800's still make stupid decisions for sure, but they are now doing so with more units, higher eco efficiency, and better micro.