Personally, I can see why there were "Best of. . ." collections from the '70s. A lot of the stuff was cranked out to meet deadline, and neither the art nor the stories were particularly stellar.

In the '70s, the Batman titles were not must-haves to me. I picked up the occasional issue if it was Man-Bat, Neal Adams, or something else that caught my fancy (oh, and I never missed the 100-pagers!), but I passed on quite a number during that decade. Then in the mid-80s I got on a big Batman jag and started digging in the quarter-boxes at conventions and local shows. I soon had complete runs of both Batman and Detective comics from 1968 to that present day.

Then I sat down and actually read them! Good God! When I finished, I kept fewer comics than when I started. The really good issues made the rest seem like utter dreck.

But hypocrite that I am, I'd buy all the Batman Showcase volumes DC would deign to publish -- they're such a bargain (use a little imagination, and you don't need color).