Absolutely. I'm showing my age - back to the late 70s for me! Maybe some of my German friends at university influenced my way of thinking as they were dismissive of Leverkusen being a small club near Köln, no bigger than Uerdingen (the other Bayer works team of the time).
I'm just showing my age and my sense of nostalgia. These clubs all gained promotion and did things the right way - there's no disputing that.
It would just be beneficial, I feel, for German football if some of the better supported clubs currently languishing in Bundesliga 2 or even lower (e.g...
Bundesliga 2 is littered with big historical clubs - Hamburg, Kaiserslautern, Hertha, Nuremberg... Average attendances have even been higher than in the Bundesliga for at least one matchday.
Sadly (in my opinion), they have been ousted by less traditional teams (Hoffenheim, Wolfsburg, Leipzig...