You know thats a bit simplistic. There was much much more substance than that fueled by a significant number of differences in policy between the UK and EU for 25 years.
What specifically though, as we had our opt-outs concerning Schengen, currency, even freedom of movement to a degree if we'd bothered to implement it properly. None of that was ever going to arrive in the UK by stealth. I'm not really interested in whether we use imperial measures in shops! (And in any case, British road signs are still displayed in miles, the construction industry prefers to work in metric, etc)
If we were looking to join the EU now as a brand new member who'd never been part of the club before, and we managed to negotiate the deal and standing within the EU that we had pre-2016, whoever pulled it off would be hailed as a total genius.
On here at least, I don't think anyone has ever painted the EU as the land of milk and honey. There are significant questions around elements of how it operates and the endgame of relentless expansion has never quite been clear. But it's so obviously a better option than what we're heading for.
They've ruled out any form of customs union in the last day or so; unless they're playing with semantics and we'll end up with an arrangement that is basically the same thing but DEFINITELY NOT A UNION to appease a tiny fringe of idiots, that messes up the Irish border question. Again. That's an actual, bona fide, constitutional crisis - of our own making. This is the level of leadership we have. We don't know what we want and we wouldn't know how to go about it if we did.
We've voluntarily plunged ourselves into crisis, there is no making any sense of it. For the vast majority, it comes down to people wanting fewer foreigners here. Nothing more, nothing less. There is no economic case for it, there is no basis for trusting those in charge to leave us better off eventually.