I’m not sure how “current” George Strait is. His peak was in the 90s.
Like I said, country evolved as did every other genre of music. The music of the 20s sounds nothing like music from the 60s, or 80s, or now. Everything changes, and whether it’s better or worse depends on your personal taste.
I think old country (Hank, Willie, George, etc) is the reason many people refuse to give today’s country a chance. It’s not all twang and dead dogs and cheating wives anymore, and I personally think that’s a good thing. So it’s the old country turning people away from the new stuff but at the same time, the older people that enjoyed that kind of music growing up say that what we have now isn’t even country. It is country, it’s just “grown up” so to speak. These are two problems that give country a bad rap and people have that adamant “I hate country” attitude when they’ve hardly given it a fair shot.
I think country hit a peak in the 90s, way after Hank. Travis Tritt, George Strait, Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Brooks & Dunn, Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, etc. Now, some of the singers that were great in the 90s got pretty shitty in recent years. If I hear another 9/11 song by Toby Keith or a beach song by Kenny Chesney, I might scream. But new performers like Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, and Carrie Underwood more than make up for it.