Toiletman... I think that may have been a bit before my time.
But what I do remember is how you had to be vigilant about your html tags. If you left your tags open at the end of the post, the entire thread font from there on would be in italics, or white, or size 8, or whatever, until someone would correct it ("bold OFF!"). And of course there were those enterprising individuals who found ways to really screw up a thread with that technique.
The old days when tags had to be turned off or they would continue on to the next posts. After some people would turn text white and no one could read the following posts, they finally found a way to automatically end tags. Some html coding had to be banned because of abuse.