To say that people thought these were good vintages when they came out doesnt do us much good now. It all comes down to how the wines from that vintage have developed over the years. People seemed to be pretty high on 97 napa cab but maybe they are starting to fall apart? Look at WS with 99 napa cab, probably not an “off” vintage but not nearly as great as they hyped it to be.
On a side note, I really dont like the term off vintage as its not black and white. There are dismal vintages, like 74bdx, 02rhone, 98CA etc but I think we could break it out further. Maybe excellent, great, good, poor, avoid?