I have trouble getting excited about generics, and in deed the other new features in 1.5, but I was assuming that I'd feel the benefit eventually (probably when 1.6 comes out - I've always been a version behind the whole time I've used Java). So I was amused to read
Tim Bray's first impressions of 1.5:
I've never really cared much for generics, the class of errors they prevent seems small and uninteresting, and my eyes don't even see all those casts any more.