I think you both have good points and opinions, no need to fight over it, the argument was good enough without throwing in shots to immaturity and ego.
I think it is good to have elders opinions on things, if they are agreeable or not. They have a certain passion for their music and the landscape of Japanese rock, just as you do, Blackdoll. Even if they see things differently than you, they are speaking from the same kind of love that you are, they just have love for different things, and see those as important.
I think to dismiss all of current VK is a little brash, and a lot of us disagree with that, esp. when those statements come from an era many of us loved, and where many VK fans were made (09-10).
I think business-wise, VK stagnated after Luna Sea and X Japan started phasing out, but even then there were a few top bands who were huge, and many smaller bands without as much revenue.
Music wise, I can find great VK music from every year, even today, I feel like the quality has never dropped off, styles and looks have dropped in populaity, but we have constant waves of great bands coming in that are far from generic or plain copies.
There were always generic bands and copies, and it is debatable that the VK elders opinions on copying and being over-produced are very valid, as Blackdoll put it, it certainly is hypocritical when:
X Japan, Luna Sea, Buck-Tick, Color were all heavily influenced by different Rock genres and styles from America and Europe / UK.
Dir En Grey were very heavily influenced by older bands, and even their band name and stage names are products of their environment.
X Japan was produced to hell and back by their studio and Yoshiki, who was a perfectionist.
Luna Sea had huge production quality, and got more and more into almost cinematic album sounds and musical atmospheres.
Dir en Grey may come in with heavier sounds, and rough around the edge tone, but they got their start with Yoshiki producing them, their releases using special booklets, writings and pictures to attract attention, and the fact that all of their demo`s sound vastly different than the studio product after an engineer and producer get their hands on them.
As for the fan-girl thing, that has always been the case for music and most media, starting with Bards in the middle-ages to Frank Sinatra and how the studio system really took off, to The Beatles, who are the most revered band of all time yet got over by trying to pack in young girls, and pipe in the sounds of girls screaming to incite the crowd to follow along and produce `BeatleMania`. Then Rock Bands that followed such as Led Zeppelin, to Glam Metal etc...
The fanbase has always had packs of rabid fan-girls, that is how the business is, and the gender or hysteria of a fanbase, as well as the bands branding, is no indication of musical quality.
Yoshiki still plays the piano with an orchaestra behind him to girls crying in the crowd to this day, far from `pop music crap`.
There was probably some other things I wanted to say, but whatever, I forget.