As much as I dislike Awakening, it was the game that kicked off my Fire Emblem fandom so I will give it props for doing that much, and i still have fun with it even if such occasions are rare. However, as much as i hate to admit it, the older FE games have their problems as well. Poor Balancing in the case of Fire Emblem 3, 4 and 6 with mounted units dominating 4 and 6 (GBA FE's and FE 4 and FE 9 mounted units are just flat-out better than unmounted units) and the large chunk of pre-promos in FE 3 and 12 being useless (more so in FE 12). FE 7 is overrated to hell and back as the game just feels like a dumbed down version of FE 5 with maps that don't hold a candle to Thracia or New Mystery. Speaking of Thracia, the game also has fairly poor balance due to Warp Abuse. Radiant Dawn has terrible balancing due the availability of most units just being garbage. Sigurd and Seth cheese their games harder than Warp Abuse or Awakening Pair up ever could. And I personally hate lower growth rates as it increases the likelihood of your units getting RNG screwed. (FE 12 and 3ds FE's avoid this problem to an extent). Also a large portion of Armor Knights, Archers and early-game fighters in older FE games flat out suck.
While the story, and level design of older FE games and FE 12 for the most part are of higher quality than the new ones (Revelations as an example of how to make the most boring maps in Fire Emblem ever) the older FE games aren't exactly perfect in comparison.