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While the editors are a good guide to 'eras', other things to consider are owners, the malign/benign influence of the sub/assistant editor (such as McKenzie and Diggle) and those sudden imposed changes/effects of available artists/writers - I would divide 2000AD into the following:

1-85  Pretty dire period really.  Only Dredd (of which a lot of is rubbish - see most of the Luna-1 stories) and Robo-hunter really stand out.  The rest is fairly forgettable.

86-126  The superior Starlord merges and suddenly the comic is improved no end with the inclusion of Ro-Busters and Strontium Dog.

127-177  Oh dear.  Tornado bites the big one and all the good work goes down the drain, as 2000AD is forced to take on BlackHawk and Wolfie Smith (Dave Gibbons later redeems himself with The Watchmen - just!).

178-307  The "Golden Years" part 1.  despite the odd early hiccup (Mean Arena, Meltdown Man), this was a period where 2000AD really consolidated what it did well.  The Wagner/Grant writing partnership starts and dominates the comic for the next 400 Progs. The best of the oldies return (Stront and Slade) while classic after classic start - Nemesis, Ace Trucking, Rogue, Slaine.

308-499  The "Golden Years" part 2.  Alan Moore's tenure as a writer of multipart thrills, combined with Wagner/Grant and Mills at their peak create some of the best comics ever...

500-588  The "new wave".  Moore leaves, but 2000AD trundles on regardless.  Replacements start to emerge in the form of Milligan, Morrison and Smith.  The Wagner/Grant writing partnership ends.

589-722  Crisis!  At this point, someone takes their eye off the ball - Ezquerra and Mills go with disasterous consequences - Mills work on Crisis will colour much of what he does from here on in with an overly preachy tone, while Alpha is killed off in the absence of the Moustachioed Maestro.  The new wave fail to fill the gaps left by Moore, W/G and Mills, many using 2000AD as a springboard to US comics.  The launch of the Megazine and Revolver further stretch available talent.

723-937  Disaster! Wagner, Grant and Mills set up their own rival with Toxic!.  2000AD tries to fill the gap with Mark Millars Robo Hunter.  The darkest days of 2000AD...

938-1199 Slowly the comic tries to rebuild itself from the ruins and that bloody film!  New writers Abnett, Robbie Morrison and Rennie help bring a little consistency to the comic, with lasting characters like Dante and Sinister Dexter.  This is more from the commitment of the editorial team than the publishers.  

1200 to present.  Rebellion give 2000AD the attention it has long deserved.  Still a long way to go, and until the next Alan Moore comes along, still not perfect, but definitely on the up (just give over with the smut, OK?).    

..as I did with the last Anderson story, which lost points each week until the end.

As for the outrage over the pubic lice and cock stirrup, I kind of agree.  It's fairly gratuitous.  In the old days, Pat Mills would have talked about a 'Grobble Stirrup', and we would have still got the joke.  Nikolai Dante has also upped the perve factor with his latest outing, much to the detriment of the strip.  I used to show 2000AD to friends, work colleagues etc.  Now it's a much more guilty pleasure, hidden in a brown paper bag in case the girlfriend gets a look at it!

You sure about the dates, Stoogie?  I thought the annuals were released in 79-81 but dated 80-82.  What's on the cover of the earliest one - if it's cover dated 1979 then I bagsie it - whatever the cost!

The problem with SH is that too much happens in explanatory boxes and there's too little dialogue and interaction between the characters (besides two episodes of people whining on about where Dr Trips is!).  This is 'tell' not 'show', which makes for a dull comic strip IMO  - it should be the other way around.

Too much exposition and too little plot (bad guys attack good guys).  The Sixties setting should present more interesting scenarios than this - Vietnam, the rise of the counterculture, revolution in the air, the emerging musical superstars (Beatles/Byrds/The Who etc.) who in their own way were very much like superhero teams....  instead we get satanic charlie Manson vs angelic hippy.

The art is tops though.

Haven't got a map of Mega-City One, but I'm working on a map of the Cursed Earth - I've done all the research, it's just a case of actually getting round to drawing the damn thing!

The closest MC1 map I can think of was in the Dredd story 'Bob's Law', which showed a breakdown of the different sectors into North/West/Central etc.

But surely the point is, Wagner approves of Dredd blowing away jaywalkers!  

Dredds 'original writer', a certain 'John Howard', was described by Wagner as a secret collector of Nazi memorabilia!  Wagner has always said that while Dredd is an absolute bastard, the world could do with a little bit of Dredd to take out the real scum, whereas Grant sees only the bad in Dredd, which is probably more PC, but makes for less interesting stories...

The beauty of the Wagner/Grant writing partnership was this tension between the writers. Wagner stopped Grant from showing Dredd as a one-dimensional bully and Grant made sure Dredd was never shown in too sympathetic a light, so you were nevr sure whether to boo or cheer.  

Grant's solo Dredd's (and his Andersons)have often show a complete misreading of the appeal of the character. This week's Dredd is just plain wrong.  The line about doubling the strike rate against the mutants is the kind of thing you'd expect from Mark Millar!

The Rogue Trooper game is OK - the best is the Nemesis game(by Martech, the same people as the Slaine game), where you had to pile up dead Terminators in order to reach the higher platforms.  Probably the closest of all the 8- bit 'interpretations' of 2000AD characters.  Now if only they'd done the Judge Death, Halo Jones and Ace Trucking games that were rumoured back then...

I agree totally - Ace Trucking never had a proper ending in the way that say the origianl run of Robohunter did.  Ian Gibson would be an inspired chice.  First off, he did one of the very early Ace stories, and secondly, his style is so much more 'cartoony' these days that it would be much better suited to Ace than Dredd.  

They should at least do one final story to finish the whole thing off - The 'Free Ace' campaign starts here!

Sorry, I didn't really answer any of your questions so here goes:

Starlord Stronts are great, though are a little different to the 2000AD stories.  For one Ezquerra's art is shaded with washes of grey, and looks great.  The centre spreads are fully painted colour as well, so they look a treat.  They are all very short (mainly 2 parter and at most 4 parts?), which is unusual given the length of many of the 2000AD tales.

As for current Megazine, maybe you might like to buy issue 9 (i think), which will feature a completely new line up - still don't know what this will be, but it might be worth a shot.  That will be out first week of March.  FWIW, I think that Wardog has been OK (certainly better than I expected from it's tie-in roots), DeMarco ( or should that be called 'Perkins') poor.  IMO, these have been a waste of valuable space.  Since the original material is limited, care should be taken to ensure it really is top notch stuff.  As far as reprint goes, Flesh has been a laugh, but again is a waste considering the amount of unreprinted Daily Star Dredd that is out there.

The Dredd has been fairly good though, so your missing out there, but otherwise, wait until March.

The first (and only!) Strontium Dog book by Titan reprinted about half of the stories, while others have appeared in specials over the years.  IIRC the only stories not to be reprinted are 'the Brain' story, (which was raided for 'the Kreeler conspiracy'), and 'The Demon Maker', which featured art by Gibson and McCarthy.

What do you think about the Daily Star Dredds, newt?  Personally, they are the only stories I don't own and therefore the only stories I really want to see.

Scojo is right about the Anderson story being 'the Four Dark Judges' - it is often (mistakenly?) called 'Revenge' because the first page ends with (a dream) Death screaming this word.

'The Blob' however, is more likely to be the John Higgins story from the first Judge dredd Mega Special though, which features a blob like mutant burning it's way through the citizenry...

You've gone and given away your real identity now Scojo.  Surely, with opinions like these, you are none other than the free-basing, sperm-donoring walrus himself, David Crosby!  Do I get a prize for guessing right?

IIRC, Als Baby was written for another magazine that either folded or never came out.  I order to include it in the Megazine instead, Wagner added the one page intro to shoehorn it(very loosely) into Dredd continuity. Given it was written for different publication all together, I doubt Wagner ever had any intention of making  the young kid Fargo.  Given the childs demonic qualities in the follow up, he was more likely to become President Booth!

The really great thing about subscribing is getting each prog on a monday (usually!).  It's given me even less reason to stay at work late and at least gives you something to look forward to on a Sunday evening, with the week of work stretched out before you like a giant dead fish...