The difference then was that everything was new, the game was not designed for sticking c4 to jeeps, it was just possible due to the fact that the jeeps were modeled with cavities inside and the game physics was realistic enough. You had to be creative to come up with tactics like this, and then the tactics really stood out because nobody expects it, in bf2 when you see a jeep you always expect it to be rigged.

I feel BF2 took many of those elements and removed the joy out of them by making them into special cases, such as "Press A to jump over the wall"-thing. Bf2 does not have exactly that but i'm talking about the concept of pre-scripted mechanics that can be triggered by one button instead of a game expressive enough for the player to make those mechanics himself by combinations of other simpler mechanics. And i'm not only BF2 talking about bf2 but also most other games from the last 5 years.