I suggest playing Mega Man X, the original. Or any of the classic games. See what a game with REAL gameplay is like. Then you'll see ZX's critical flaws.
You know, I've done exactly that, and I STILL perfer ZX's gameplay better. Probably because I perfer handhelds and the X series sucked(to me anyway, it's my own opinion). The classic Megaman was pretty good, but overall, I actually
like where the series is going. If not for Battle Network and the Zero series, I'd've never gotten into Megaman. And sure, maybe ZX and ZXA's stuff was a tad gimmicky. So what? Doesn't make it a bad thing.
And Starforce, while I agree 100% that it should've been much longer, was quite fun. And because it was like the Battle Network series, I liked it that much more. Megaman is still going pretty good, in my opinion and the gameplay has improved a lot. I mean, just look at Mario. (Personally, Mario isn't that good in my opinion, but whatever) He's on so many types of games, so many different gameplays, and he's still going quite strong. Mario started the same way Megaman did and the only reason, to me, that Mario is going better right now is because NoA/J is slightly smarter then CoA/J.
But yeah, I'm probably the only one on this site who thinks that Starforce and ZX(ZXA and the Zero series) were the best out of all the Megaman games.