Yeah heard of some of them but IMO the best players came from RtCW. I started playing RtCW at the same time it was being phased out by ET coming onto the scene. Speccing the players who would get massive kills (and many would on a full server) I was simply amased at not just aiming skill, but knowing the maps, pulling off noobtube shots, strafing, team work and more. I would not be suprised why many were so good at ET.
I still remember speccing one guy once (RtCW) and what he did was simply jaw dropping: (on ET_Beach) drops a timed airstrike which takes out 4-6 guys on the beach, takes another 3-4 guys rushing up the beach while using MG gun nest in the bunker (the left overs who havent died from air strike), he gets bleeded nearly to death so he hides and primes a nade, chucks one to the right where you plant the dyno at the door and gets two guys with the nade right on impact (no delay in hitting the ground), gets up turns left and while crouched picks off yet another 3-4 guys around the pillars on beach, all with mostly headshots, at this point hes lucky cos a med packs him up, he looks directly at the guy with panzer on the beach so what he does, runs to the back of the bunker and gets his team mate splattered by the enemy panzer, with less HP than before he runs out fo the bunker and up on it, packs with ammo, chucks another nade near the door while he throws an airstrike right in the edge of the bunkers front. Jumps forward, kills another mid air, primes a nade while hes flying and another 2-4guys right under the bunker get blown up parallel to the wall, while some poor bastard wants to gib him (cos he died falling) for his ammo and gets naded instead and that jump was not random..it was towards the enemy hiding around the enarest pillar near the barbed wire fence.
I swear this guy knew his map surroundings and was a frigging good aimer not just with smg. This was all when i pretty much started playing RtCW. I was like WTF OMG :0