I do agree that EA makes pretty good games. I've stated many times that I'm a fan of their NCAA football series, which I think is the best football videogame HANDS DOWN, way better than Madden or even ESPN's 2k5 game, which I though was much better than Madden '05.
As for Madden being "always great"? Not really. I love Madden '02, the '03 game sucks, '04 is pretty good, and '05 is better than '03 but not as good as '04. At least, that's my opinion of Madden. Now the older versions for Sega are good, especially Madden '95 and Madden '97.