I've never been a hardcore fan of B&B, even when I watched I was often likely to complain (especially about characters like Ridge or Taylor), but for me the show is just not the same after somewhere around the period that Brad Bell takes more control. That would probably be somewhere around 1994 or 1995. That's when the show starts to lose its glossy, pulpy identity and you start getting the glut of really bad, stupid, embarrassing stories like James and Taylor having sex at Big Bear mid-avalanche because he didn't want to die a virgin, Brooke having a breakdown on the Virgin Islands and clutching dolls after it was revealed that Bridget was Eric's daughter, moments like Thorne divorcing Macy by fax, the writing that was too biased on Stephanie's side and made her into a gorgon, the truly gross treatment of Jessica Forrester (especially her rape storyline), etc.
There are still some decent moments here and there from that point on (and I even got back into the show more heavily around the late '90s), but that is the line, to me.