It’s been a while, but since I was there (I’ve been on Escargot so long that 7.5 was the latest supported version at the time that I’ve joined), my timeline of events were as followed:
I had at that point registered multiple accounts under e-mail addresses I had no such way of accessing (usually because the domain couldn’t exist, or other reasons)
By the end of the relevant year, I had grown bored of Escargot with my main account, considering that the last year or so my main account was targeted in a rate-limit that made it unusable without popping open 300 authorization dialogs.
To be fair, at that point I had ran a contact list importer script to inject about 1200 or so contacts, which probably was a good reason for it, but ‘eh’.
Then the modernization scheme got announced with very little fanfare, I mostly just accepted it as “so if this is what kills my accounts so be it, I’d just watch it from the side-lines after this”.
I later checked in on their Discord to see how that was going, only to find not really much was happening in terms of development or anything to really have any staying power (WLM 2009 support being the last major thing that happened at that time)
So I kind of just waited it out, not really interacting with the community to try and see if it got better, in hindsight, it only got worse, but at the time I was really hoping something.
Turns out, nothing better really did ever happen, as E2 (from an observer’s perspective) was confounded with multiple (unannounced) delays.
Doesn’t help that most of the people I wanted to actually speak to had already left the Discord by that point.
When I revisited the Discord in 2024, it was very inactive, but I noticed Anima saying they had MSNP17 documentation to release eventually after writing it, which I don’t think was ever finished.
I made a few jokes about MSNP development being a slog during my return, but it wasn’t taken too kindly at the time. (Probably because as we’d learn by then, Anima was the only person actually capable of writing for the MSNP server)
I wasn’t paying attention to notice Skype support was being announced at the time, but eventually as we’d know, ‘The Event’ would happen.
Tony’s ‘final’ outbreak. The (from my perspective, possibly at worst, dubious, only proof of something of such happening is RAS/OOS’s name change) legal threat. The forced closing of NINA (which is funny to see denied despite the wording given when it happened).
At that point, Escargot finally became the laughing stock I was waiting for it to become since Modernization, and everyone got to know it.
Though… This is about NINA. Escargot somehow took the ‘hit’ pretty well. I was hoping that it just stopped existing a week or so in, to which it didn’t, because even NINA’s servers were still running, just not anything with HTML web presence.
Sure, at that time I was banking on MSNPiki being somewhere new, but considering the low quality with later protocol versions, I ‘gave up’ 
.
As for the OSCAR stuff, I feel like they were holding it back to like try and cover themselves. It was mostly documented fine disregarding that, but considering what they ‘might of’ had, they really could of overdone it.
As for the servers themselves (now):
Escargot is deteriorating. Pretty badly too if all those PPCRL login errors are to be believed.
NINA is “functioning”. I can only assume it’s being developed undercover to try and evade suspicion.
After knowing the kind of resources NINA actually had, I’m not surprised it was the most feature complete server… That still feels painful to say, but I just wish everyone else could catch up without playing dirty tricks to get compatibility out fast.
So in short: Yeah, I had pretty okay sentiment at the time, but Modernization did ruin it and make me a casual observer. Now if only we could understand why we’re playing this game still…
Though from what I seen it, may be more difficult with less details, although it is a global thing so might work.)