I do not really play CS for long now, I got 1.6 when Source was out long time and Source even later. Both of these are sadly very popular- and therefore, littered with hopeless morons, kiddies, especially if their voice is NOT powered by HLSS, cheaters that need to make up their lacking dick by scoring highest in the scoreboard. Something that really invites you to fuck some games up by voiceannoy, teamflash, teamkill, etc.
I apparently would never do that in Mods like Sourceforts, Fistful o' Frags etc. Not because there are too few servers so I could run out of servers (powered by Kickban) very easily, more like because they are not crowded with Jerks, giving me no reason to piss some people off. Greifing Non-Jerks is no fun anyway, because they act mature and won't scream at me like they have catched their husband asking a prostitute for hot BDSM...

Now, using those two aspects you can finally get the point of this unnesseraily long introduction and get the gist: I miss the old beta days, even though I never participated in them. There were no idiots, no "LOL YO MOMMA"-screamers and none of that people that call people idiots not realizing how stupid they are themselves. I will furtherly explain on the latter in this example:

Let's imagine you're a newb who has just bought (or dl'd) the game and want to ask the players a few questions.

"hi im new, this game looks super. i have a question tho, how do i buy weapons? thx"
CS Beta: "well, it's usually bound on 'b', just look in your options"
CS 1.6/S: "omg u suk u dunt even kno dat and u made a heddy with teh Glock ure A fuCKN CHEETER!!1111"

"well and how do i best start a game"
CS Beta: "you usually have $800, i'd recommend buying a vest but if you want, you can also buy a deagle or some grennies"
CS 1.6/S: "dun bother us u fukn gay nub! were 2 busy pwnin nubs like u in teh assLOLZ!!"

"what is the flashbang for? could you tell me plz thx"
CS Beta: "well, you see, you can carry two of them. if you throw them, it will blend people who stands in Line of sight in it. the duration and amount of that is determined by if you are facing the grenny and how near you stand to it"
CS 1.6/S: "skrew u nub I dun hav tiem for this because i gotta pwn"

YES, THAT'S RIGHT. You could actually ask where the weapons were and why you could find none onscreen and actually get friendly answers that explain you everything.

Of course, it was all bugged up, but some bugfixes and it'd had been a fairly nice game.
But then there was dust...