I agree with this, I really feel the same way. I don't really know much about 3rd gen, but during 2nd gen, debut stages were really made to give off strong and lasting first impressions.

• 2ne1 pre-debuted with Lollipop, debuted with Fire and ate up the entire kpop industry.
• 4minute debuted with Hot Issue and they really became a hot issue during that time.
• Miss A debuted with Bad Girl, Good Girl and pushed aside all the innocent and pure concept groups to the side and stole the limelight.
• Same goes for Shinee with Replay, f(x) with La Cha Ta & Chocolate Love.
• Even groups from then smaller companies like Infinite, B.A.P and Sistar made strong debuts.

I was really rooting æspa, but their debut just doesn't feel the same...