I tend to agree with Dave (initial post) that roughly after Tommy, the Who start to become just another boring 70s rock band.
I generally like most of the early stuff. While I spun it to death in my teens and maybe the first two or three weeks of my twenties, I have to be in the right mood now.
I do think, though, that the band in general and Townshend as a songwriter tend to be overrated, maybe not as much so now as, say, twenty years ago.
And, I think the Small Faces and the Kinks TOTALLY blow them away.