I don't think the Prem is any better than it was when we went down. Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U and Spurs have all had far better teams then they have now. Man City may have their best ever team but are they better than Mourinho's Chelsea? Barely.
And the same counts for the rest of the division. Wages have gone up, is all.
Seriously, the standard is much the same as it was a decade ago. And If anything has got clearly weaker, it is the bottom third. Plenty of garbage down there in the last few seasons have stayed up.