I still do.
So do I. The first time I saw a clip of her Giselle I was momentarily tempted to put my eyes out (but thought better of it and turned the video off instead).
Well, I hope you had the chance to see Zakharova once live after that missed opportunity, volcanohunter. You do realize that condemning an artist on account of a clip is rather cheap and doesn't really help anybody?
I suppose it's a matter of maturing, and my impression of tackiness partly lies with SZ's early exposure in the major roles. Now a decade later, SZ has come into her own. What if she had been promoted to principal, say, three or four years ago? We would exclaim: "Venus has just come out of the sea!" All thanks to the Marijinksi management for putting the formative years in stage light for the audience.
Some dancers--Kondaurova comes to mind--seem to get "it" from the get go, even if they were not yet their polished selves back then. Still, it probably did help for Kondaurova to have spent a few years of obscurity back in the corps/demi-soloists, rather than fast-tracking to the principal. Being away from the spotlight removes a dancer from the Next Big Move and may even give her better sense of stage, organization, etc. Bolshoi seems more observant of the "starting from the bottom" practice, and growing through the solos characterized the career of someone like Alexandrova.
If Zakharova leaves anything like bad taste today, it's less the six o'clocks than the lingering self-satisfaction.
As for Somova, she is not tacky so much as she has little to tack on to. If Vishneva seemed a bit wayward back in 1996, at least personality gave her performance a focus. Somova feels...badly in need of the well-tempered Terekhova.