It also doesn't help that, besides the rise of digisubs and fan subbing in general, actual commercial distributors are releasing more and more mediocre or just plain bad stuff into the market, because they know it will sell anyway to the newest generation of "Anime is SOOO KEWL!" suckers. I can't blame them -- this is capitalism -- but even as recent as a decade ago, something had to be pretty good in order for a company to bother bringing it over the pond and releasing it here.

I'm not ragging on all anime, of course; there's some stuff I like. I'm nuts about FLCL, I enjoy me some original Gundam, and there's no stopping Miyazaki. But the fact remains that the vast majority of anime is crap, and always has been. It just sometimes takes a while for those new to anime to become jaded enough to notice.