Re: Those were the days my friend.
Yes, let's be fair to it - it was a significant improvement, especially SE. Still, as a gamer you still got used to reinstalling Windows every 4 months or so to speed everything up. NT managed to get rid of that - sure it was a bit slower, but it managed to maintain the same speed long-term.
Kids these days, and all that...
Edit - oh, and I also bought OS/2 Warp. Did a great job, and was rock solid. I was even able to play System Shock and Descent smoothly in DOS windows. Say what you will about IBM these days, but OS/2 blew Windows out of the water for a long, long time.