That's different--quakeworld did client side prediction so your local side was updating with no lag (ie, move the mouse and your view would rotate with very very little lag, just like you were playing a local fps). The positions of players was lagged because their canonical positions were controlled by the server, but that manifests itself totally different than display lag.

I am not sure if you are trolling or remembering through rose glasses. you CAN play qw with such a ping but you would not stand a chance against anyone with a ping of 30. projectiles and players jitter all around the place.