Yeah, but those are two different things. Something can be a classic because it happened to be the first one to execute something new successfully enough, including making something more widely known. But it's a different thing whether it's really so exceptional if compared objectively to others that came later. If you took some random joe from the streets who has never seen any anime or heard any hype and sat him down to watch randomly old classics and good new shows with their shiny HD graphics and clear audio, would he think similarly?

Besides, those classics are only classics in the minds of those who saw them a long time ago or younger folks who have been conditioned by the older people repeating endlessly how great they are. If you look at, for example, the infamous Japanese polls that Sankaku translates, those classics are nearly absent. They are forgotten among the primary anime audience.

So, yeah, you are both right and wrong. Most current shows will be forgotten soon enough, but in fact younger people have already forgotten those that we might call classics.