(When you cast your first spell from exile, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less
The ability to sacrifice it to tutor any other land in a player's deck is certainly powerful, though an effective 4 mana (3 + tapping Urza's Cave) to activate is a steep cost in a format as potentially fast as Modern
Every player has certain cards that are fondly remembered, whether because its a card that captured their imagination when they first discovered the game (Eron the Relentless and Killer Bees for me), was part of a deck you loved to play (Rishadan Port in Legacy Lands for me), or any other numerous sentimental reasons
Flash was reprinted two years later, and again, no one really cared
More importantly, Brilliant Bosun fits into the Inventor theme of this deck, providing a payoff for having a lot of items by letting you pay less for your other Inventors