Was 2000s WWE actually better than today, or is that nostalgia talking?

[Hollow Coder]

Fans of the 2000s WWE era, often called the Ruthless Aggression era, constantly praise it as genuinely more edgy, more character driven and more unpredictable than today's more carefully managed, PG rated product. Storylines pushed genuine boundaries and roster depth felt deeper with more distinct larger than life characters competing for attention. But modern WWE has genuinely better in ring workrate on average, improved production values, and arguably tells more coherent long term stories than the often chaotic booking of that earlier era actually delivered. Curious whether people think the 2000s genuinely had something worth missing or whether this is standard wrestling nostalgia talking

The case for today's product usually points to genuinely higher average match quality and more consistent long term storytelling discipline compared to the often erratic booking decisions from that earlier era. The case for the 2000s usually centers on genuine unpredictability and characters that took bigger creative risks than today's more carefully corporate managed product typically allows. Feels like a real tension between measurable in ring improvement and something harder to quantify getting lost along the way

Where do you actually land on this, and why specifically. Genuinely curious how people weigh nostalgia against measurable modern improvement here