Popularity wise, I think it’s more popular now than it was in those years tho, and that’s their bottom line. That peak, right after the Grand Reopening, felt like the park had a strong (not strict) theme, a true identity and we were just waiting for the rest of it to be finished/fleshed out. Honestly, it felt like the park finally had a heart and soul.
In more recent years, there seem to be a lot of different ideas about what the park should, or could, be since then, and that’s led to a lot of strange (and sometimes contradictory) decisions and design choices.