I used to be wonder why Settlers of Catan (or just Catan as it is now known) remained so popular. "It's fine, but there are much better games in the current wave of boardgaming" I woukd think to myself and would avoid it in a frankly snooty fashion because of this attitude.

I've matured, and while I still think it doesn't "deserve" it's extreme popularity, it is a good game and nowadays mostly chalk up its popularity to it being early in the modern boardgame era and it just has a lot of inertia (much like Monopoly does from a previous era). So, go ahead, play it, have fun, and leave a seat for me to join you.