The subsequent tournaments since New Zealand hosted have been unrecognisable in scale, profile and financial return and have created a sense of 2011 being the last this country is ever likely to host.
That's maybe why this reminiscing about the All Blacks 8-7 defeat of France is such an evocative exercise: it's not just about remembering the unlikely and almost miraculous events on the field, but also mourning perhaps the fact that New Zealand's homeliness won't be considered a quality strong enough to win another World Cup hosting bid.
There was an earthiness to that 2011 World Cup that the world loved. It was a tournament that took fans through the spiritual heartland of the game.
The rustic nature of the stadia - particularly in the South Island – reinforced the myth of New Zealand being a land of fearless, rural pioneers and far from seeing some of the infrastructure as grossly underfunded, visitors mostly found it quaint and charming.
Just as most of them headed here having been told New Zealand was like Britain in the 1950s and so they readily lapped up this idea they were spreading homemade preserves on their toast, would find a friendly bobby on every street and could leave their motel doors unlocked.
But the problem with this boutique World Cup that connected fans with rugby's traditional values and New Zealand's land that time forgot charm, was that it lost money.
The government had to underwrite the $30m shortfall and given that World Rugby has to live off its World Cup profits for four years at a time, the governing body had no choice but to see 2011 as a never to be repeated exercise in rewarding the All Blacks for their overall contribution to the game.
New Zealand as a World Cup host is a box that has been ticked and no one should labour under the misapprehension that the tournament will be back here any time soon – or indeed, ever.
The Rugby World Cup has morphed into an almost purely commercial beast since 2011.
The 2015 World Cup in England was a licence to print money. The newly rebuilt Wembley hosted two pool games – selling more tickets in the process than Eden Park did selling out the final, two semi-finals and one quarter-final.
The All Blacks, in their four pool games, played in front of an accumulated 275,000 people, which compares with the accumulated 150,000 that bought tickets to watch their pool games in New Zealand four years earlier.
The 2019 World Cup in Japan changed the scale of the audience and commercial partnerships. More locals watched Japan beat Ireland in pool play than tuned in for the football World Cup final in Yokohama in 2002, while the major corporate sponsors paid big to connect with the 127m people in the host country alone.
England and Japan brought their own flavour certainly – sprinkled a little of their respective identities into the mix, but these two tournaments were defined by their commercial returns and in being as financially successfully as they were, they have effectively made it impossible for World Rugby to sanction a small-scale, loss-making tournament such as the one in 2011.
There will be another reinforcement of that this weekend with the All Blacks playing in Maryland.
The USA has launched a bid to host either the 2027 or 2031 World Cups and even if there are only 50,000 people in the 82,000 capacity FedEx Stadium, it will still provide an illustration of the financial potential of a tournament being held in North America.
The playing potential of the Eagles will no doubt remain questionable after this weekend's test, but the US is undeniably a land of untold riches.
It is rugby's El Dorado and on the 10th anniversary of that nerve-wracking World Cup final at Eden Park, New Zealanders should raise a glass to bid farewell to a time when plucky little battlers could not just win World Cups, but host them as well.
