I disagree. Although I think the 90's did see a drop in story quality from the 80's, I wouldn't go so far as to use the word "decadence" to describe the situation. Well, now that I think of it, for Marvel comics I would.
Incidentally, Watchmen is one of my favorite comics ever. I read it over every so often, just for the sheer enjoyment of it... I still find new facets to the story and characters that I hadn't noticed before.
Hey, whatdya think this is, a free country or something?--sheesh! :)
My opinion on decadence in comics is basically in agreement with what Jim Steranko expresses here: STERANKO WAGES WAR ON COMIX TERRORISM! I haven't ever tried to quantify the degree of decadence at Marvel vs. DC. But at Marvel for instance I saw a trend towards decadence in the Spider-Man series with the influence of Todd McFarlane (whose depiction of Mary Jane bordered on the pornographic and who also drew a lot more blood and gore than any previous artist) and later the overdone clone series (which I guess you could argue was more just bad writing than decadence per se). In other Marvel strips I see signs of extreme PC-ness which encompass the decadence associated with PC--for instance increasing numbers of gay characters; the recent Avengers issue depicting Ant-Man emerging (literally) from sex with Wasp; and an ambiguous stance on the War on Terror in Captain America, etc. At DC I'd say I noticed a trend towards decadence starting with Frank Miller's Batman which made the character much more morally ambiguous than he'd ever been; and I also see Neil Gaiman contributing to that trend with for instance the orgy scene in Sandman; and there's also the same general trend towards PC-ness I see at Marvel, as illustrated by the left-wing alternative history of Superman. Those are some of the things I'm talking about when I refer to what I see as decadence. But maybe I'm overgeneralizing, since I'll admit I don't keep up as much as I used to.