As always, great points. I will say this too: For those millennial like me, I think the perspective is a bit skewed, because if you're like me and your working memory for snowstorms started at the blizzard of 96...the span from then to 2016 was one in which you still had those 3-6"ers, and every 3-4 years you'd get a good-sized storm of either a foot, or maybe two feet every 6-7 years or so. So the dud years in between were normal and expected.
What we didn't see? This long of a stretch without seeing more than 5-6". Like, that never happened. It was always 3 duds then a good one. Not 8 straight like this!
So I guess what I'm saying is that there is generational slanted perspective for some of us. What was a realistic expectation seems to have changed.