What wasn't functional about it? From what I vaguely recall, I remember v2.95 being able to service as well as any other player, and the media library was one of the few that seemed to understand the value of using stable sorts when re-sorting by a different column. And then there were all the plugins...
Foobar was almost certainly better for audio, but needed the user to drive the entirety of the esthetics themselves. VLC played anything but the interface at that point didn't feel cohesive, and I don't remember any kind of third-party plug-in ecosystem worth mentioning at the time. I don't remember a lot else mainstream, Windows Media Player? iTunes? I vaguely remember MPlayer classic being strongly associated with DivX et al, but not used in a general-purpose manner.
Foobar was almost certainly better for audio, but needed the user to drive the entirety of the esthetics themselves. VLC played anything but the interface at that point didn't feel cohesive, and I don't remember any kind of third-party plug-in ecosystem worth mentioning at the time. I don't remember a lot else mainstream, Windows Media Player? iTunes? I vaguely remember MPlayer classic being strongly associated with DivX et al, but not used in a general-purpose manner.