The M&Ms are always a welcomed addition. One thing I love about the older MREs is looking at the commercial packaging on some of items such as Skittles, Charms, M&Ms, etc. just to see how it's changed over the years. For example, if you were born around 2002, you may learn that the internet still existed because there are some website addresses on the packaging.
The cheese spread wasn't great, but I think it was okay in the sense that I wouldn't have gotten sick if I ate all of it. It was greasy and tasted very "unfresh". I didn't consume all of it because it just wasn't enjoyable to eat. The vegetable crackers were a bit on the stale side, but were still perfectly edible.
I'm surprised the fig bars weren't browned at all! These looked and tasted fresh! I had some fig bars from a 2010 HDR that were more aged than these. In a way that was kind of a disappointment since the aged fig bars are actually very tasty.
Although it didn't look the part, the raspberry applesauce was still fine. It was sweet and had a strong sense of raspberry. They still produce it in the current MREs and it's one of my favorite MRE deserts / sides along with the cherry cobbler, marble pound cake and the raspberry First Strike Bar.
The cocoa was pretty good, I just mixed it with cold water because I find that the cocoa from this time period just tastes better that way.