i think that you would get 10x the amount of people playing the game if you have really good netcode, vs a really good game, with mediocre netcode.
It seems like with every version of quake the net connection was getting slower and slower? Q3A was fine until the "anti bot" code was introduced... then it was just a terrible ping from there on in.
if anything I would say take as much time as you need with the net code stuff. The rest isnt as important.
I could care less if the nurses clothes are falling off, or the sentry sinks through the floor every so often.
I want to see speed, I miss all the fun grapple monkey stuff i used to be able to do. And dont really feel like spending another 400 hours getting it back. Adjusting to lag on a server was the only real issue I ever had. When you are getting spikes and choppy connection, its next to impossible to perform any advanced maneuver. You ususally have to settle for "target" or tactical defense to be effective.
-S. bob