Compiz was one of those things I could show off to friends to prove that linux was actually way cooler than any of _their_ operating systems, but since then seems to have been completely forgotten about (at least by me). This was a nice blast from the past.
Almost every foray into linux on the desktop (when I was younger) for me started with seeing a cool video online with window effects (Compiz being the one I remember), installing linux on a new partition, spend the day getting most of my hardware working and playing with Compiz and other cool visualization utils (I can't remember the name of a tool that would add computers stats and whatnot to your desktop background…
Hah, for me, this was when I started getting deep into WINE and also some of the games available for Linux (SuperTux, that one game where you shoot a ball and it sticks to other balls and if enough of them are the same color they disappear, and some DOOM port).