It was a looooooooooong wait. My experience was a little skewed. I started watching in '96, but only the season 3 reruns at first. I fell in love with Dy/K immediately, of course. Then I picked up the new episodes as they came along, so I was watching the old and the new at the same time. Now that I think about it, it's amazing that I even have a clear timeline in my head of how the show goes.
Of course, when you watch the episodes dozens of times, you kind of get things down. VCRs are awesome! I do remember wanting Dy/K back together so bad in seasons nine and ten that I could hardly stand it, though. It was torture.