>I seem to remember that the WM that came before Metacity was Sawfish, not Enlightenment.
Yes, Enlightenment was used before that but wasn't a ubiquitous choice because it was considered absurdly big and bloated when all you wanted was a window manager (how things change).
IIRC Sawfish was an attempt at getting a standard WM that did enough to be useful for nearly everyone but without all the bells, whistles, and gongs which made Enlightenment so heavyweight.