Well at least your potential bias does have some reason to it lol. There's no denying that a shit ton of influential/classic albums dropped in that era.

There's a couple I'm going to have to go back to. Being my age, I'm familiar with the artists that lasted long and/or the universally approved. By that I mean like Nas, Mos Def, Big Punisher, 2Pac, Wu-Tang and Common.

I mean I come from a generation more familiar with Xzibit as the Pimp My Ride host than anything else. I mean I remember liking him on The Marshall Mathers LP and liking that "X" single. Past that I'm not familiar and assumed he was always corny lol. Paparazzi is definitely dope.

Same with Redman, I'm used to him and Method Man doing the corny stoner thing. I can see by songs like "Whateva Man" and people citing him as an Eminem Influence that he has straight up rap skills too.

An excellent era to come up in and I can tell a lot of it is lyrically/technically driven, so I see where your emphasis on MCing comes from.