Just because it was harder to publish games it didn't mean that the average game was better. Survivorship bias is a thing. Noone even mentions the godawful crap that was thrown at us back then (outside of the honorable mentions like E.T.), while the absolute hits from back then are well anchored in the collective mind.

If your recommendations are trash, please feed the algorithm a bit, because that only happens if you never ignore things / publishers or someone played a bunch of trash in the past on that account, and when you never wishlist/follow games that interest you. You can curate what the queue shows you very well - the times i get a game that has even just mixed reviews are pretty rare.

Edit: that last part is because unlike other companies, Valve does not spy and analyze you from all angles. This also means you have to engage more with it to get a good result, because without accurate information it cant do shit. I prefer it that way - better they only use what i willingly give in a specific context than dealing with another abomination like Meta.