Thanks for the feedback. For me, most old games seem like they were much more fun than newer games. I don't know if that is because older games were truly better, or just newer/innovative at the time, or if I have just become jaded and cranky with 30+ years of age.
But if you go to a website like Gamespot and look at Game rankings, most of the highest ranked games are from the late 90s. I remember playing the first Might and Magic and having a blast, and not that long ago I got one of the Might and Magic RPGs I had missed (I think 7 or 8) and thought it was a lot more enjoyable than Neverwinter Nights, despite the polish and graphics. The older HOMMs seemed better too than my experience with the HOMM5 demo anyway.
I often judge a game by the amount of fan-based activity and content, which was what eventually led me to Dom3 - when I saw the Wiki. Some games just come out and die almost immediately - not even an FAQ on the web to herald their passing. While I had some fun with AoW2:SM, I don't see much of a community around that game, maybe I am just not looking in the right spot.
Also, though not much of a real-time strategy game player (too much stress in real-life; no need to supplement it with frantic clicking and scrolling around) - I did find Warlords Battlecry 2 to be a game that stayed on my hard drive for a long time. It had that touch of old school humor often missing in newer games (the voices for the quasits come to mind)...