That's nostalgia. Plus you probably don't watch a lot of kids programs to judge and only hear about the popular ones.

Bluey is heads and tails better because it teaches kids and parents how to approach heavy or sensitive topics like death or being taken advantage of. In a tight 7 minute episode. They understand their audience doesn't have a big attention span and it's one of the only shows that seems to get that while being helpful to raising a kid.

Octonauts is a sleeper that doesn't get the respect it deserves. Had all the trappings of a toy line with absolutely no merch. They did it for the love of the game. Cool new areas of the sea to explore. Lots of new animals and some really weird ones that don't get a lot of play like siphonophores. 6 seasons and 3 movies (2 good ones) it had a great run.

Numberblocks, Alphablocks, and Colorblocks are anthropomorphic cubes representing something and each time they pull out a new idea to teach something basic. Its hard to make basic things exciting or fun. These do. And it actually teaches the subject clearly, so it's way more instructive than the abstract "C is for cat" (just like all the other letters that sound like K but don't have one because English is arbitrary like that).

Three to five examples there. Some great stuff exists that probably flew under your radar.

Let's not forget The Electric Company.