I think even some uses of it back in the day are probably better than we gave credit (Titan A.E. comes to mind for me). Don't get me wrong, I dunno if I'll ever not miss that kinda rougher handdrawn animation vibe just because there's not much of that anymore, but tbh there's LOADS of CG stuff, highly creative, visceral, beautiful work, and it's not less just because a computer's in there. There's a LOT of stuff with CG work, and it's largely pretty killer.
i mean look how good Iron Man (2008) was compared to even the MCU shit now
they put their whole ass into it before the switch flipped in studiio execs minds that computer wasn't just for Good, it was for Cheap because its not Union
it's far from my favorite movie but it is at least one where you can contrast directly within the franchise the quality of the effects
The thing about "good" cgi is that in many cases you don't actually notice it anyway. It's definitely a labor issue because, as we saw with the studio that was making cats basically at the same time as the first sonic movie, these teams are stretched way too thin and get immediately squashed as soon as they finish their work
