Ironically, I think we needed Identity Crisis in order to trigger a turning point in fandom culture. The rejection of dark, exploitative stories eventually led to brighter stories--or at least more balanced ones. It just took another couple of decades to get there...
honestly you're probably right. that era of dc would not have greenlit a world's finest ongoing where they're friends and not like, idk killing each other
It was worth it just have Mark Waid writing Impulse again in his Justice League book.
I'm glad we finally got there with DC after some serious shake-ups in the editorial section