Compared NN4 and IE4, NN4 was better. Compared to later IEs, IE were better.
Except for IE5 for Mac. That one was weird, it's CSS implementation was best from all the available browsers. But when you opened Slashdot (or another table heavy site), boy, you quickly switched back to Netscape.
No, it wasn't. Were you there when NS4 came out?