Is it me or does this have a higher reputation now than it did when it came out? When it was new I remember a lot of disappointment over how old-fashioned it was.

Cape comics in 2003 had changed a lot from what they were in 1998 when Busiek and Pérez first teamed up. Five years earlier Busiek's third-person captions and continuity fetish was pretty much house style at both companies; in 2003 DC and especially Marvel were trying to emphasize a more modern style and new reader friendliness, and there was kind of a civil war between old-school and new-school fans, with this crossover maybe caught in the middle. Plus it was using a version of the Avengers that Marvel itself considered hopelessly old-fashioned and was going to blow up and replace within a year.

Now that it's an old book instead of a new one, and we know it was the end of an era for both Marvel and DC, it benefits from nostalgia.

Any other stories/books you feel are more well regarded now than at the time?