Disclaimer - Not a huge Beatles fan, but as a musician with some degree of *formal* training (15 years of guitar playing; 3 years of formal Music Theory in high school where we studied the Beatles progressions in class, 1 in college, and 1 class in history of rock music) I feel there's a need to defend them a bit.
*I read your ensuing posts as well, where you addressed this as well. *
It's truly hard to overrate The Beatles. They were the first is so many categories. Their influence on music today cannot be understated. Not just pop music, either. It's okay to not like them, but you gotta give credit when credit is do. Music today would look extremely different if the Beatles did not exist.
They were one of the tightest bands of all time even at the beginning. The weren't just a group of attractive young men who could kind of sing; they were truly talented musicians. They were able to produce perfect vocal harmonies during the live shows - the one's where the teenie boppers were screaming their lungs out. I guess what I'm saying is - they were always great musicians.