Yeah, um, fmods wouldn't have been "joining in" at that point. Rants was restricted to most fmods during that period. There were only a small number of fmods who were given access to Rants.
You definitely had to have to thicker skin. I can't imagine many people being able to handle old Rants or even many older forums. People are much more sensitive (or at least pretend to be sensitive) these days.