Well, after a week or so of thread inactivity, I've had a chance to watch quite a few MST3K episodes.

Do the terrorists win if I say that I enjoy the Mike era better than the Joel episodes?

Maybe it's just the episodes I've seen so far, but stuff like Final Justice, The Girl with Golden Boots, Space Justice, and Racket Girls are funnier to me than Manos. I even prefer Final Justice to Mitchell... but Mitchell was pretty good. As was Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Oh, and Manos was a hideously bad movie.

And, not all the Mike episodes are great. For example, the Hamlet episode from the final season... sweet deity of your choice, that is a bad film.