Ha, my oldest is 11 now and I remember biting the bullet to get her the Roundabout from Li'l Niblets (the only Canadian store that carry the only Canadian Britax seat) in early 2000. $300 and GST!
She outgrew her Evenflo On-my-way at 3.5 mos (yeah yeah, recall on that one) and Fisher-Price was revamping the Safe Embrace and no stock available. This is also when most babies were ff at 6 mos old or 20 lbs (because 20 lbs was the upper rf limit for most seats)). So I had to make the parental decision to keep her rf in the RA (which was the same as the US RA) beyond 20 lbs, as seats with rf limit to 30+ lbs were not out until months later
Even when my ds was born, the MA was not out yet. He was lean but long so he outgrew the Fisher Price infant seat (name escape me right now. The one with the shoulder strap) and we had another RA for him which lasted for a couple of years, until the MA came out in 2002.
I even bought another MA for my oldest when she was 5 and I wanted her to continue harnessing. This was before the Radian or anything like that, the MA was the only seat with relatively tall top harness slots. That lasted her about 1 extra yr for the 1" of shoulder height growth.
Sigh... How much things have changed and have improved for us. My dd#2 is now a bit older than 3.5 yrs old and still rf while the other two had to ff at around 18 months.