I'm inclined to agree with sh10453's observations. I used to read my TechRepublic email on a daily basis, but now I only check them a few times a week.
I joined TR in my first tech job back in 2002, and I found it helpful and interesting. I found the quality dropped a bit after CBS Interactive bought CNET (some of the authors I liked left), but it got worse when CBS sold it.
I noticed many of the articles anymore are product "comparison" articles, which are just silly. Many of them compare only two items - for example, an article comparing two VPN vendors, or another comparing two password vault services. I see plenty of other articles comparing multiple vendors of the same technology, written by the same author of the "two vendor" article, so why the *additional* (lighter) comparison article? Additionally, many of these comparison articles seem like the author wrote them by simply reading vendor info sheets and not having actual hands-on experience.
It seems that many of the "new breed" of authors lack credible technology experience. I recall authors from the past were people who were IT department leads at universities, or were program managers for technology companies, but many of these newer authors do not have that background, are fresh out of college, or have a journalism background without any technical experience.
That said, I still appreciate the more technically inclined articles from the authors who have been around for a long time, and many of the "Cheat-sheet" type articles.
I will say I am happy that I was able to (finally) unsubscribe from the "solicitation" emails on whitepapers, webinars, etc. Those were a BIG annoyance after TechRepublic was picked up by TechnologyAdvice.