Where's the option for "neither, the show was ruined when it was first stripped for syndication"?
Seriously, I've said many times over the years that the show wasn't well suited for syndication. To me, the show started going downhill after the first syndicated season, when they started tinkering with the rules and lowered the second safe haven to $25,000 and made the game significantly more difficult, likely in response to the fact that the top prize was given away twice in its first year. It took another six years for them to give away the million dollars- and even then it was the result of a gimmick tournament that basically forced a winner. Nobody legitimately won the game in 16 years, and correct me if I'm wrong, but since the start of the clock format, only three people even legitimately saw a million dollar question (and even then, one of them was the result of the dumb Jump lifeline of the Shuffle era, so that barely counts).
So yeah, the entire run had its issues.
The clock format wasn't as bad as many make it out to be, but it had problems beyond the clock. The Ask the Expert lifeline was usually worthless, especially when the "expert" was a celebrity, and the money tree in the second clock season made no sense whatsoever, particularly in the second tier... it was almost as if it was designed to get people to walk away early.
The shuffle format wasn't even recognizable at all. The host roulette certainly made it worse.
The last four years with Chris Harrison weren't terrible. Sure, the format was a bastardized version of the classic format, but at least they were making an attempt. There were still significant issues- the question writing was generally bad, the difficulty was all over the place, the shuffle era music felt way out of place, and the graphics overhaul during the final season made the show look and feel that much cheaper. A shame, because Chris Harrison was actually fantastic as a host, better than Meredith in my opinion.