I was fine with the flame wars, crapfloods, etc, because at least it was human (except for incredibly primitive bots). The spammers were even humans, and might even talk to people briefly before spamming again. It felt very different. Dealing with assholes is normal and possible, dealing with faceless entities and bots is like punching a wall.

Generally though, I agree that Usenet was difficult after Eternal September unless you stayed on top of your killfile.

Mailing lists were pretty manageable, and the phpBB era was fantastic if you found some boards you liked.