I gave up on AT at some point. hamfisted romance, less adventuring, declining quality and suddently the writers are pushing morals on you (when the early seasons were realy strongly setting itself apart on subverting the expectation of moral to the stories. they were almost explicitly saying "we don't do that")
i haven't watched anything since season...5?
then i got the recomendation to watch the "stakes" arc from the last season, and it wasn't all that bad. is AT in recovery?
Dunno man, I dont really think that the overal quality is declining. Its just after some really exciting hyping up episodes the normal ones seem weaker than they really are.