Based on SomethingAwful's After-Action Reports for GI Joe, I think you mght wanna take a look back and see some of the episodes again.
After all, your whole perspective will be changed when you rewatch some of your old favorites.
But you're right. While some of the cartoons just sucked and we didn't know it, most of them were quality cartoons. But now, if you can find a show doesn't have something to do with "collecting them all," then you are very lucky.
And they make cartoosn for everything now. Beyblades? How the fuck do you make a Pokemon-style cartoon about spinning tops? Yu-Gi-Oh or however it's spelled, just runs off statistics that only die-hard 6 year olds understand. And the list goes on.