I'm sad that no one is doing this in an organized statistical manner, because I'm almost certain people are just looking at everything through their personal filter and nothing much has changed concerning the objective "quality" of the sale.
As someone who only has 150 games, I'm trying to look pretty objectively. I think the fact is that so many of the "good games" are previous entries - and yes they are going on sale, but they are buried as "hidden dailies." I think that's a large factor. Also, a lot of these games aren't getting the STEEP discounts that we saw in sales 3-5 years ago.
There's a combination of factors into the perspectives of why this sale isn't great, and it is a combination of all of those factors. The sale, for the front-page games, isn't great. But, for people that have missed previous entries, those games are still seeing discounts but requires digging. Although some of those games aren't getting as good as deals as they have previously. Like Morrowind. I've had a non-steam copy for years, but finally wanted to dip in. The lowest price this sale was $6.74 and two years ago in the 2012 Winter Sale it was $4.99.
I also think that maybe steam is banking on the marketplace to cushion the shift in DEEP discounts. The discounts are still steep, but not as steep as previous years; I think the marketplace may be a factor, but I'm not well-versed in the current Steam goings-ons.
