You are the old guard. I'm the new guard. You've been around the 616, you are completely submerged. You caught things like the Clone Saga and Venom when they first happened.
Now though, for new readers, many find it too much work to track down these old titles and read them because they are sort of out dated on both an artistic and time period levels. You may be able to appreciate alot of the 616 because you've been in it for about half the time.
I have no probelm saying I've only been in comics for about 4 years now. Spider-Man 1 (movie) is what got me into them. However, when I found out what Marvel had done to Spider-Man in the last decade and a half I was like hell no. I'm not reading that. Also, I don't want to read 40 year old comics in black and white. But when I picked up Ultimate Spider-Man and saw that beautiful colorful artwork and a modern retelling. I could get the story from pretty much the start. And what I was missing was already available in handy TPBs. Great. Sold. I don't have to both hearing about how Gwen slept with GG and how Eddie Brock is dying from cancer.
I see it and hear it more and more on these boards... "
616 is too hard to get into, I'm going Ultimate." You guys just don't understand. I do.