I think that might be a bit of rose colored glasses. The first AP1 loaner I had in 2016 was impressive, but also freaked me out with a phantom braking event on a metal bridge. The most recent AP1 loaner I had could not make it through a corner I have been using as an AP2 test corner without crossing the center line and hitting the brakes. I would trust AP2 in more situations than AP1, though in the situations that AP1 has down, it does tend toward more confidence. Caveat: I only have a few hundred miles on AP1, compared to thousands on AP2.
I'm not basing it just on my experience.
I was even more heavily involved on TMC back in 2015, and 2016 than I am now. I only saw a handful of mentions of false braking during the early days of TACC. It only increased after Tesla tried to do more with it. There was a particularly bad update where they tried to brake if an emergency vehicle was stopped in the lane next to you, but it kept mis-detecting things that weren't emergency vehicles at all. At some point they pulled the update because it was so awful. I can't remember if it impacted TACC or only AP.
In any case I had a really positive experience with TACC during my entire time with my Model S between 2015 and 2018.
On any given drive from Seattle to Portland I knew the odds of a false braking event with AP1 was low, and if it did happen it was going to be pretty soft. Sure it still happened occasionally, but a really low amount. Probably on-par with what a Subaru with a later version of eyesight has. I didn't have good experiences with AP so I didn't use it. Most of my drives was 90% TACC only.
With my Model 3 I know that any drive from Seattle to Portland is going to have false braking. I tend to know where it will occur and I could easily mark them if Tesla had any way of marking a problem spot using the nav map. I know any time I go under a sign where the road dips under it that it might trigger a false braking event. I believe there is one on 405 Northbound near where you get on it from I5N.
The difference with the Model 3 is that most of my driving is AP driving as AP2 is so much better at AP driving than AP1.
The insurance institute also tested AP1 (with an older version of firmware) against AP2 (with a new firmware version) and they concluded the same thing. That there were way more false braking events with the AP2 car than with the AP1 car. But, the AP2 car (with the later firmware) was a lot better at staying in the lane.
Keep in mind I'm not opposed to Tesla trying to make sure their cars stop for stopped object. Most of the events of a Tesla running into an emergency vehicle have happened with AP1.
The problem I have is it was imposed on me when I don't have a problem with crashing into stopped cars.
I should have a way of dictating to it how sensitive I want the TACC to be.
There are sensitivity setting for Emergency braking, and there is a binary enable switch for prevent acceleration into stopped objects (which I have off because that's had false detections). But, there is no way to adjust the TACC sensitivity to stopped cars.