I think it's finally improving. Sure, when Shippuuden started I was so ecstatic because finally we were promised no more filler. Ha, a likely story. Once the clone fights started I was losing interest; when they ended the way they did I was somewhat angered. Now that we're past the whole Fire temple kid arc and getting back to akatsuki things are looking up.

Still, it lacks the flair it had in the beginning. The first ep I saw was the start of the Naruto v. Neji fight as it was playing on a roommate's pc. He loaned some files, I found a player that worked on my old compy, and voila I could watch them on my own. It wasn't exactly an awesome series but it was well-composed and engaging.

Maybe I went overboard, but I watched the first 54 episodes in 22 hours.

About the only episode that really felt nostalgic was the Shippuuden premiere, and actually this Hidan + stringy fist guy arc we're in is too, barring DB's rather liberal use of Mr Spock's "colorful metaphors." Things are serious again.

If only the filler writers had similar talent to the original author, the series would be much stronger now than it is. Since we withstood what, cumulatively approx. 28 hours of unabridged low-quality filler material, most viewers can instantly spot any filler insertion in a canon ep, and that distraction significantly detracts from the overall experience.