We were never a major force.
And "our weight" is anywhere from mid table Prem to mid-table Championship, the same as lots of clubs from WBA, Leicester and Derby to Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland. At the minute we're punching at the top end of that, while other clubs are in the middle of that range (Sunderland) or at the bottom of it (Forest, Sheffield United).
You can build your total delusion based on no more than a five year period in the 1980s (really, two seasons) and pretend that represents our true level but it doesn't. All the other seasons - year after year after year - do represent us. Funny that.