Most of your complaints about modifications aren't cheats. You could learn how to play with Q2 stock and thus the player using custom sounds and bright skins won't have an advantage vs you anymore. He wouldn't even have one in the first place if you used those mods yourself. When it comes to more accurately discerning what is cheating and what's not, it's better to deduce whether or not a player would have an advantage from accessing hidden information that's not normally available from the game itself, while also maybe doing so by modifying the game's code. Things like aimbots and wallhacks do that.Really the bright skin argument is hard to sell I'd say these days. Even Quake Live, an official ID Software Quake game comes with bright skins an optional feature, which even casual players use once another player or their friends tells them about it. As for the David angle, it doesn't really help your argument and makes it look like you don't know what your talking about it. Just save it for that thread in l33t demos.
I swore by stock q2 for a loooong time, and consistently did better than anyone in usa that was using the same(unmodified, stock q2). And now look at me, very thankful for my pak/settings...I'm just pointing out that although that makes excellent reasoning for your own preference, that's not so accurate with the comparison that was being discussed here..
if you prefer 3.20... the sad truth is that you most likely just didn't get r1q2 configured correctly