JHS's RAT myths info page has too many obvious errors, and ironically they actually introduced myths.
Off the top of my head, they didn't introduce the final period RAT with the RAT2 PCB, and they say the no brackets version was only a cosmetic change, which is not true.
The Turbo Rat pics are not of an '89 but a '95. You can clearly see it has the multi RAT PCB, and the serial number shown is about 10k after the serial on my '89 TR.
And the biggest myth they introduced in the article is that they say ProCo replaced the LM308 with OP07 in '95, which is not true at all, but later in the article they also state the LM308 was discontinued in the early '00 and phased out of the RAT production around '05. They clearly didn't even proofread the article.
The chip change actually happened in the early 00s. I had some guy trying to argue with me over this on TGP recently, who was quoting some RAT employee's post who said any post '96 RAT2 which has a LM308 has been modded lol. That was quite embarrassing.
I haven't read the whole JHS page but I wouldn't be surprised if there were at least a few more errors.
As to the difference of tonal characteristics between the RAT and the RAT2, I'm not the only one who's noticed it but I actually had read many guys saying it before I bought my first RAT. I had been ignoring them for many years because I thought they were just nonsenses by guys trying to sell their old pedals, but I immediately regretted my decision when I bought and played mine because I realized what they had been saying were true. Many of the stuff I've read on gear forums have been BS ime, but there is some truth.
Have you done a blind test between the Rats and Rat 2s you've had?
I always do it when comparing pedals. I would just switch each pedal on/off until I don't know which is on and play, but for the RAT vs RAT2 comparison I don't need to do it to hear the difference because they are not even close. I've read some guy's post saying the RAT sounds more like an overdrive, which I kinda agree. It just feels better. I mean I'm not a fan of distortions at all. Maybe I should've stated it earlier.