Short answer - the future happened. Stefan saw it was a losing battle trying to keep hackers contained while all the processing was done clientside, so he introduced serverside. Then as he focused on G2K1 and Kingdoms, support dwindled for those servers such as Classic that still used default arrows, movement, damage, baddies, maps, minimaps, weapon scripting, signs, etc - and eventually all those things were effectively disabled. So the valiant LATs I left in charge made a few mighty attempts to convert all...let's see, 7033+ levels, either by hand or by their own tools, to compliance.
If it succeeded, neither of us would be on this board right now - it didn't, it's waaaaay too much for any one person, for any one team, for any one community to convert in a reasonable ammount of time. So they all quit in dismay, and the new team did something lame with a new map and Peen Lake which they'll never live down, then they left and Mass and Mass did a pretty good job of rebuilding the system on serverside - so it looks like Classic and works like Classic but works on the new server software - and they just have to reconvert all 7033+ levels to work with the new system. By hand. Preferably without taking artistic license. Which is even harder for a scripter to do...I've been playing around with rebuilding Baddies (a common project without a clear answer), and every time I start on "This baddy moves...hey, I should make it drop bombs! Make a bomberman baddy! Hey, I should make a gani so the player can ride it like a horse if they jump on it somehow, a Baddy Rodeo! Smash it into walls, that'd be awesome!" - but not very Classic, not the Classic you and I remember.
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