I must say, I wasn't a big fan of 6 or even 5 back in the day. I thought 5 had a weak story with decent co-op, but the last battle was epic, and I did like some aspects to the game's second half. I just all in all, saw it as a RE4 clone.
I have never fully disliked RE4 either, in spite of me kind of hating on it a lot. There's a lot to like about the game. But I always believed it hampered the genre because of the action heavy gameplay. You never really had to worry about ammo or stuff running low. Whereas in older games, you knew carelessness was not a good idea. But I do like how RE4 played a big hand in a lot of horror games from the 2010s being successful.
6 however, I appreciate more now because 7 and 8 don't feel like they are truly RE games. I do think they are still good horror games, but because they are supposed to be connected to the RE universe, some things are hard to fully take in because of their deliberate silliness. But all in all, I don't think it would be fair to discredit everyone's work on it. The voice acting is top notch, and the story is perhaps not the best, but Ethan fought to the end.
One of the voice actresses died from cancer. So her involvement in the game means a lot to her widow, I'm sure.