Erik, I miss the hell out of that gym! Back in the early to mid-90's there were at least 10-15 members at any given time that were competing in shows. It was truly one of the best gyms in CA, if not the USA. Did you know Jesse Robles, Edwin Menor, Roman Esparza (still trains there), Darian, Jeff Mulheim, Doud Dearth (Dave's brother), any of those guys? VIc Richards was even a member there for a few months.
This is Ron Harris, by the way. I did indeed use crappy form by only going halfway down when I was doing my 600-700-pound squats. I relied more on spotters back then and in fact I know a lot of guys didn't want to spot me because they knew it was going to be a lot of work.