Yea the movies were good for the time but the fox films were def not really xmen films. They were literally cameos with the focus on wolverine
I am conflicted because the later Fox moves that drew more heavily on the look of the comics, more spectacular action scenes, and a young team, were less well received and meh at the box office. They put too much focus on Professor X, Magento, and Mystique, which meant that the characterisation of the actual X-men was weak, inconsistent, and entirely plot driven. They were supporting characters in their own franchise.
The way the first one had dark visuals, a moody atmosphere, and low key power usage really drew me in, and a wider audience who had never heard of the X-Men. Apart from Rogue (and Iceman who was a bit too sensible) the core of the characters was there. Even though X2 was awesome, by the end of it I felt that we were two movies in and we still hadn't really got a proper movie about the X-Men. While it had development issues, X3 did transition to give us that. It was just a shame that the delays meant that we lost Cyclops' most iconic story as Wolverine stepped in to replace him when Marsden left to make Superman. By the end of X3 though, we had a decent iconic core team lined up - Storm, Iceman, Shadowcat, Angel, and Colossus, with Rogue lined up to permanently steal some classic powers when the cure suddenly failed.
The decision to make the main movies AND spin-off movies have a focus on Wolverine made them lose faith in the other characters to carry the franchise and the decision to reboot rather than do X4 impacted franchise's momentum because we had to start from scratch, and then again in DOFP, and then again in Apocalypse.
If they had stuck with X4 as the Marauders Massacre, while Wolvie worked through his issues in the Wolverine with Yukio, they could have taken down Angel, Shadowcat, and Colossus, like in the comics. This would then have led them to X5 - the Fall of the Mutants with Wolverine returning alongside replacement X-Men Havok, Polaris, and Dazzler, with English Betsy being brought in as the replacement telepath and maybe Gambit turning against Sinister after the Massacre. At this point, Gambit can also reveal that Scott and Jean are still alive as guinea pigs in Sinister's lab.
Then instead of a Wolvie spin off, do a Muir Island spin off, where the wounded X-Men Shadowcat, and Colossus (maybe Nightcrawler and Multiple Man?) discover Professor X is alive in his dead twin's body and recuperate while facing off against Proteus.
X6 could have then either been DoFP or Age of Apocalypse, featuring Cable and the rescue of Scott and Jean for a happy ending as per DoFP.
X1-3, the Wolverine, and DoFP actually fit together really well as a satisfying arc I would love for the MCU to build from there as more of a soft reboot than reinvent everything with their own spin from scratch. I'm quite apprehensive that they are going for a bright costume over-powered action oriented X-Men that could be as hollow as the prequel sequels.