100% agree. I always find it puzzling when people start saying that they want Eisner back. There are issues now and I complain plenty(!), but I really don't think people remember clearly or know how bad things were by the time he left. As you say, this went beyond the parks to Disney's reputation more broadly being nickel and dimed away.
I kind of feel that when people accuse Disney of being cheap it is a hangover from that period when Disney was very actively and openly trying to do everything on the cheap, including allowing Disneyland in particular to get into very bad shape. Whatever other complaints may exist about him, I think Iger was ultimately willing to spend big on the parks and resorts. I also think he meddled less than Eisner, who seemed to think of himself as Walt 2.0 but whose instincts often weren't all that great.
That's not to dismiss all the complaints people have about Iger, but it's just to say that a lot of the revisionism about the Eisner period involves forgetting almost a decade of the parks progressively going into decline and the company as a whole no longer seeming an industry leader even in animation.
