I have mixed feelings.
I was becoming embarrassed to be associate with the mainstream melodic rock bands by the early 90's. It was all unskinny bop, Trixter, Firehouse and lots of other wishy washy nonsense.
Grunge was necessary to clear that lot from the airwaves and I do like some of the grunge output.
Unfortunately there were a lot of great rock bands who were innocent victims and had their careers decimated by the sudden shift...Giant for instance.
It's a shame there wasn't room for both sub genres to run side by side.
The grunge years were actually when I got into AOR. I'd always been more of a metal fan into Queensryche, Crimson Glory etc. Because of the lack of releases I started buying a lot of secondhand stuff which included the likes of Toto, Starship and Chicago. Without grunge I might not have given them a listen.