Bruh, the need to immediately gauge a series' place in history was nowhere near as common as it is today. Of course people did it, you can find an example of anything when it comes to critiquing things. But series were actually allowed to breath for a while before everyone and their mother was looking to gauge its place all time. We're in the age of everyone having a platform to express their opinion so of course the easiest way to do that is to make lists, do Mount Rushmores, and "One Gotta Go"s. In lieu of genuine critique, shyt is GOAT or trash. Social media dictates what is must see which then has the adverse effect of making hipster types automatically hate a show for being popular. When Oz, The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, etc were airing the culture around TV was very different. I remember people having gripes about the Vito arc in Sopranos for example and the uproar over the finale. People most definitely weren't saying shyt like "This could've been the GOAT but now it's not even top 10". Facebook and Twitter were in their infancy and Instagram didn't even exist. TV Guide wasn't dictating a TV show's place in the lexicon, fam. It most definitely wasn't contributing to the type of groupthink so rampant when it comes to TV and movie discussion we have today.