I think England really were dire for most of the '90s, but it was definitely a good era.
WI still had Ambrose/Walsh and Lara, they were on the decline, but still a strong team and very difficult to beat at home. India managed to be very good at home with an average team (bar Sachin and Kumble/Azhar at times) and were minnow-level away. Sri Lanka were as good as India, if not better. NZ were alright I guess, can't remember much about them. Australia were on the way to constructing an ATG team and had most of the pieces in place by the end of the decade. SA were easily the 2nd best team of the decade behind them, I'd say. Pakistan really underachieved with their generation of talent, shame about all the corruption and politics. Zimbabwe were also decent and quite capable of the occasional upset.
In hindsight, it was a bit annoying that ODI cricket really caught the Indian public's imagination through that decade, far too much energy was wasted in playing those money-spinning Sharjah type ODI tri-series. Not enough Test series against the top sides, and we had to sit through some real boring affairs against WI/SL etc.