There's no point protecting the "pros"
They almost all had essentially nothing to offer.
They are not training experts, they aren't going to be giving you any advice on your training "aids" and they aren't any more charismatic than anybody else on the board (less so, most of the time - due to their hesitance to interact fully).
There have been maybe a couple of guys that were entertaining. Shawn Ray was a pure troll like many of us, here - he is top of the list. He was a piece of work that belonged, here. Titus was great for his rage. Kamali was legendary for how quickly he couldn't handle it. Kevin basically posted one sentence vague answers to the odd question. Rich Jones was a polite dude. Tony Freeman.. polite. Loads of polite guys. But not really anything majorly interesting. Chick - was patient.
It's not a very long list of people who were significant.
And the "other place", back then. Mayhem - anything but. A sterile, boring board with no character because of people like Tom Prince who, at the height of his drug use, would moderate the board with an iron fist - melt down if steroids were mentioned at all etc.
I'm not saying these people are without virtue - just you know, the soul of this board has forever been loosely controlled anarchy and I'm not so sure that pro bbers are worth more than that.