When people talk about the Attitude Era, they have a tendency to simplify it down to two things: sex and violence. While there were both of those, there's one thing about the Era that people forget, and what's really been missing from WWE since; the humor. Or to be specific, the way humor was used. Back then, you could do a funny feud that led to some damn good wrestling (see: Jericho vs Regal or the legendary TLC wars) or have a serious feud with some funny elements (see: a lot of the Austin-McMahon-Rock feuds). It wasn't as one-dimensional as it is today where you've got "serious" feuds and "funny" feuds which are usually anything but.
90% of the things people bitch about regarding the "PG Era" could easily be fixed if the current crop of writers knew how to write comedy. That's just my two cents.