I seem to remember 2000 not being that big of a deal while the campaign was actually going on, but I was just a kid. It's hard to imagine anyone being fired up about 96 either.
It's not hard to see why the last four elections were a big deal. 04 we were in the middle of a war, in 08 Obama ran to the left of where he's governed and the financial crisis happened, and this year we have the biggest difference between two candidates since at least Johnson/Goldwater and Trump saying stuff that a major party nominee hasn't said any time in recent memory. 2012 is really the only one where I'd attribute the importance people assigned to it to media hype.
I'd say Reagan v. Mondale had a much bigger difference. Kerry v. Bush was also a bigger difference when you take into account the fact that Trump has taken every generic center-right position.
