I was really into punk music when I was a kid since the late 80s/early 90s, then the big boom happened in the mid-late 90s, which eventually yielded to pop punk and emo music from the early 2000s. I kid you not, I was bullied as a kid for liking punk music, before it became mainstream.
I still listen to it and I've even seen a resurgence coming as it coinciding with the 20 year nostalgia cycle, which is great in my opinion. But being a punk fan before it achieved mainstream success and after it went into decline by 2010s made me feel exactly as this post describes.
Punk was big in the late 70s - mid 80s, though? I thought the big boom was early 80s. It was buried under things like nu-metal and emo in the late 90s (I'm fuzzy on this because of reasons).
Idk if that's elitism. It's more calling a spade a spade. Punk at its core is about recapturing the simplicity and energy of early pre-british invasion rock. That doesn't really lend itself to ballads and concept albums. It's not about denigrating green day so much as finding a definition that fits them better.