Battlestar Galactica
There are things to be enjoyed about both. The differences in tone can be compared to the differences in tone between classic fantasy literature, like LOTR, and contemporary fantasy, a la GOT.
The older stuff has very clear-cut morality. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad. There are very few areas where things get murky (the closest thing in the original was the notion that Starbuck was a player, and fickle, and often irresponsible with regards to interpersonal relationships...but there was never any doubt that he was a good guy.) LOTR, when made into a film, had a lot of significant character tweaks in several characters...most significantly, Aragorn. In the books, there was never any question that Aragorn was going to do his duty to become the King of Gondor once again, the film makes him very reluctant to walk that road, questioning his own strength and whether he would be better than what Gondor already had.
And, you know, there are times when I WANT a simple morality tale. I want the good guys to be good, the bad guys to be bad, and little if any gray in the matter. But there are also times when I really want to dig into the grays, to hash out in my own mind whether it's better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons or vice versa, to see the guys who should be the hero of the story accomplish their goals in some very unheroic ways, etc. Because much as we would like the world to be recognizably black and white, good and evil, etc, it's not. And sometimes, it's nice to escape that reality altogether and explore a place with less cluttered views...that's why I have stuff like LOTR, the Barsoom novels, Buck Rogers, and other classic pulp-era fantasy and sci fi on my bookshelf and in my DVD collection. Even the original Star Wars trilogy and Star Trek until most of the way through TNG fit that kind of mold.
Sometimes, I want stories that resonate with the world in which I actually live, where crooked politicians do stuff that benefits millions because that benefits them, where criminal gangs started out as ways to help poor people in their neighborhoods get by in social and economic climates that were very non-conducive to their general welfare, where people become hailed as heroes by doing some pretty unspeakable things to protect their loved ones, etc.
I've got room in my library for both the old and the new...because there are times when I feel the need for each. Sometimes I want it to be a mental exercise, to challenge my sense of ethics and help me decide where I draw that line...and sometimes I want it to be an escape, where everybody is miles away from the line and both sides are clearly delineated. I don't think one or the other is inherently superior...they serve totally different purposes.