Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 are two really fantastic RTS games, so you got to play some of the best in your memory already.
You are likely very correct about the RTS being underrated these days. I guess I'm just old school because while I realize that FPS games are all the rage, they just don't really work for me unless they are RPG in nature. I really don't like online competitive play but then again, I never really tried it all that much since Counterstrike, which was, of course, amazing.