Some of it I try to gauge by the standards set by the period... So to that extent, POTF2 isn't as brutal to tear apart for me... But yeah, it sucks to look back at some of what I've bought and really looked hard for at times.
E1's full of dismal failures... POTF2 as well, but at the time I really was impressed with a lot of it. E1 though was so-so. I remember at the time thinking, "Man, they can do better than this... It's the first new movie year for god's sake!". I just felt let down at the time...
POTJ's opening couple waves really were more of the same from E1 too... Yet E1/1999 went out great with the last of the commtech figures which were HOT. The Stormie was great for its time, and it really stands up even today as "alright" even against the VOTC figure. Sure the VOTC is miles better, but as the filler for the legion, the CT sculpt is pretty decent and abundant.
For me, my worst time collecting was 2002 as far as the ratio of crap to quality... 2002's opening onslaught of Saga figures was my worst nightmare. Action features galore, and pre-posed non-articulated sculpts.
The blast effects were cool, but sculpts were iffy, poses sucked, articulation was non-existant most of that year, and really it was just a dismal failure of a line for not just the fans, but also Hasbro took major hits that year in Star Wars. I was so happy we got all the apology Jedi in 2005... Little bummed no Barriss Offee, that's all.
2002 is filled with shite product to me though... If I was gonna seriously sit down and list what I viewed as crap, a WHOLE lot of the first Saga line would be in my top spots. POTF2 is what it is, and at the time a lot of it was great (Nein Numb was cool to me, but he obviously blows today, or Garindan was nice then, crap now). Saga though had a precedent that was ABOVE what it delivered... We went from POTJ going out on an overall GREAT note, to the preview wave... To pre-posed AND action-feature-laden figures... It just got worse and worse. I don't think Saga improved really till around even the Outlander Wave... That was a whole lotta suckin' going on.