The voices were okay, but the direction was the issue. An accent or a goofy drawl wasn't needed for some characters and SHOUTING while speaking a regular sentence was a problem later on. While you can argue that the some of the shows they got were kids shows in Japan, obviously some of the heavier material wouldn't be seen as such in America. That's what the backlash from One Piece came from; it was obvious that they couldn't edit all the blood, violence and gore without butchering the flow of the stories. Skipping Laboon was bad enough, moreso when Laboon became a major plot point later on. They couldn't ignore that and thankfully they lost the license before they had to address that elephant in the room.

That said, the crop of ENG VA's today is fucking repetitive and samey, making 4kids' VA's a breath of fresh air in retrospective, and that is fucking saying something. I would have never expecting the better dubbing companies at the time to become grating and monotonous.