Yeah, they certainly were. It was a whole other world, as far as games went. Now you have to look for games like Super Meat Boy and Dark Souls to get a similar level of challenge.
Rant incoming - Companies like that should be perfect fits for GOG. GOG wants to preserve the old, and they're embracing the style of old. But they'd rather suck Steam's dick instead. The people who make Dark Souls can't even get the old broken DRM off their game and none of them have managed to conceive of the idea of going to a service where they could focus on the game instead of focusing on ways to treat customers like thieves? Fucking morons.