While I was not as deeply involved as you and other members here, I did lurk in the thread for several weeks trying to learn more about the technology and opportunity.
I was quite impressed by the devotion of group that has emerged around NXT, and the fact that the group managed to take decisions and act on them quickly. This was a big differentiation compared to other generic copy coins back then.

Some examples on top of my head where NXT committee were instrumental:
* Setting up a proper voting process (I recall how many pages were spent on that, but since then the voting seems to work as planned)
* Hiring additional developers to work on NXT wallets and extensions (resulting in one of best looking web wallets out there)
* Launching the first multi-pool
* Establishing a brand - professional video clip (better then BTC on my opinion), media print-outs, etc...


I recall how each of these ideas was voted, then assigned to one of committee members, which was responsible for the delivery of the said idea. The impressive part was how quickly and efficiently these ideas were executed.