No, I don't have it backwards. :) There's always two groups of people. The wild-eyed optimists, and the doubting Thomases. There are still tons of wild-eyed optimists right now, but for me, the emergence of a vocal minority of doubting thomases is a clearer sign of a bubble, or at least the late stages of a boom (is there a technical difference?), because it means those closest to the issue are starting to tilt more pessimistic than the investor community at large.
There are few to no "wild-eyed optimists" right now, save for a handful of investors pumping money into Zynga and Facebook. If you think that compares to 1998, you really ought to go back and re-read history.
Why is it significant? Those are two companies. Two does not compare to the hundreds of public companies that had millions pumped into them and the widespread investment in them.
