Trust me, its ALWAYS been sweet. Its the spirits equivalent of 10000 gallons of Romilar cough syrup mixed with 1000 tons of cane sugar.
Yes it has always been sweet, but gone are all the overtones and undertones of oranges, etc. It used to have more flavor. Maybe they are making it in too HUGE of batches now. I am trying small batch whiskeys now and they have a lot more flavor. SC has always been too sweet, you are right. (At 53 I have tried them all)