Personally, I think the problem with Galactica nowadays is that the world is generally far more depressing than it was when the show came out. I can take dark and gritty, but it was more fun then. Now, I prefer something more lighthearted.

Like the flashback episode of SNW, where we saw Chapel and M'Benga during the Klingon War. My first though was "this is awesome, I could watch a whole show like that", but shortly afterwards, I realised "nope, that would be way too much, bring back Captain Daddy making jokes about how flipping the communicator open is better than tapping a commbadge.

Or maybe I'm just more of a miserable bastard than I was 20 years ago. IDK.

But hey, for any sci-fi fan, I'd certainly recommend at least watching the miniseries that kicks it all off. Get a feel for the characters and the universe they're in.

I've never watched Babylon 5. Everyone always raves about it, but I don't know if I could get past the extremely dated looking effects.

Plus there's so much new content coming out. I can't criticise anyone who doesn't want to watch older stuff, because who has the time to watch it all?

That being said... you have seen Firefly, right?