Well, my opinion may have been tainted by having read the manga first and expecting too much faithfulness to it out of the anime adaptation - a rather common problem. And on the whole, it's definitely one of the better anime in recent years. Unfortunately, there has been a strong trend these days to go for the moé/fanservice crap, likely in an attempt to drive DVD/Bluray sales among the hardcore otaku in the face of declining mainstream viewers and ad revenues. I think I lost my patience somewhere around when Highschool of the Dead came out.
Nowadays I watch a lot more K-dramas, which have rapidly picked up in cinematography and acting over the last few years - they are definitely in a Golden Era right now, and the internet makes it so easy to rapidly obtain them, no matter where you are living. The K-drama fansubbing community is absolutely amazing, and it has been a TON of fun learning Korean through Japanese and seeing the similarities (and differences) between the languages.
But there's so much good anime from back in the day that doesn't get enough attention. Legend of the Galactic Heroes particularly stands out in my mind as a wonderful OVA (though it is quite atypical among OVAs, at 110 episodes). The use of a space opera setting as a backdrop for political commentary was very poignantly done. I've been meaning to read the novels the series is based on, but as science fiction novels are wont to do, they will no doubt be chock full of vocabulary that will probably require me to break out my Japanese-English dictionary.