This was also a transition period from the analog to the digital era. Analog gear was still used (such as the tape decks) but sequencers, compressors, electronic gates and other tools were also filling up the racks in the back of the studio. I have to say that they took away a lot of the spontaneity of recording music. Everything had to be matched to a click track and many takes and overdubs were required to get things "perfect". For dance music or songs with a heavy electronic component, this doesn't surprise me, but for rock it seems a little ... fake.
IMHO some of the best studio recordings were the ones that were done "live" with minimal overdubs, such as Husker Du's Zen Arcade and stuff from the early days of rock and roll. And good live performances can really show the soul of a band that may not be apparent in complex, layered studio recordings. I am thinking of The Who's Live at Leeds or that DVD/CD of Queen performing in Montreal in 1981. I saw Soundgarden put on an amazing performance once that really moved me in a way that was different than listening to their great studio records.
Many of them sucked, but almost all of them worked their asses off. A few of them were brilliant (the Butthole Surfers, IMSHO). I like some of MJ's music, but frankly I don't think he was a genius songwriter. Great performer, and had some nice hit songs.
I think something is gone with that era, in that now it's just the artist and his/her computer. No big setup, no 'control room', no tape assist punching in the vocals. No girlfriends snoring on the couch. And obviously, no band playing everything at once (that wasn't even really going on by the time I was working, though you did do things like bass/drums/guitar together with a rough vocal if it made sense for the song).
Like stained glass and the Saturn V, the art of making these kinds of records is going to be lost forever.