It's interesting you say that MC Motivator on Energy '98 (MZONE?) got it right because my friends were annoyed with this MC when I put it on in the car. I found him to be OK, but I'm used to hearing MCs now since my happy hardcore days.

I might download this Sharkey set just to see what he actually played on this occassion.

As for chocci, I only heard one of his sets and that was a hard trance set from what I remember with not much going on (like progressive techno) For me, the best era of trance was around this time - the tunes were truly inventive and plenty of melodies. This is what I think of when someone says 'hard trance'. I also love the old acid trance days from time unlimited (1994) I'll re-upload these for you.

There are lots of sub genres, yes. And some are probably subtle to those who do not hear it all the time.

Binary Finary to me has always been watered down trance. Go back to the WEMF set and listen to all the tunes (especially after half way) - melodies and beats, then put binary finary on. You will understand the 'watered down' statement.

Sharkey listens to hard house :-D So his music has influences from the lightweight scene. He has ruined some techno nights with his soft music played at events. I have listened to plenty of convos in a record shop in Bradford about him killing the night. I know about this also because mark eg and mzone did the same b2b at Decadance @ Skelter. After that set, I wanted to sleep. The sound system was terrible too. Barely any volume. Then in the technodrome it was the opposite. A sweaty sauna of stink.

I agree with asylum about the hardcore heaven weekender set being one of the best ever. I'm quite certain that if this set had been played after your typical binary finary sets at the water trance events, then all the kids there would have been jumping for joy at some real trance and what it means to put your heart into a track and not your bank account details.