We did have lore up until Asheville, though it was in a much simpler and nicer form, that being of what actually happened on the server was the lore. Lambda setting up a grand prison escape on depot, followed by a week of struggle in the harsh sands of what once was the sea of Azov? Mysterious serial killing a string of well-known figures among the local Resistance on Apoc, and the rebel mission to sabotage the Combine spire? Combine raiding the cave with a super synth? All major events that happened on the server itself and affected all players in one way or another.
That's the lore. Not some hastily written contextual backstory, but rather what actually ends up taking place there and then. Sure, we have the same thing now, but it gets overshadowed by whatever the lore team come up with. If you want to look back at early S1, lore-wise, you'll mention the above, the things that happened as a result of base player-driven actions with far less staff/lore team intervention than now. Really, it's not like you can mention anything else anyhow as there simply was no context or backstory then. There's nothing to overshadow it, so those events bask in their historic significance and will be a first point of reference for the general story in retrospect.
The lore was written by the players as opposed to the lore team, and I think that was a lot better than what we have now.