Well, I just found this thread. Interesting (this topic comes up once every year and a half or so).
OK, why PCE.... it had exclusivity. That was a big part for me. Ys Book I & II, was nowhere else. Beyond Shadowgate, Cosmic Fantasy 2, Gate of Thunder, Lord of Thunder, Dungeon Explorer II.... these games excisted on no other system and i wouldn't want to imagine my teen years without those titles.
Sure, yeah, SNES had some titles I also wouldn't want to forget: ActRaiser I, Secret of Mana, Shadowrun, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy 3, and Super Mario World. But, everyone had those games or rented them back in the day. No one was playing my Turbo games.
The Genesis, it never struck a chord with me. Sonic was OK but really, you could just press Right and Jump and get through most of those games without even paying attention. I really think it never did anything original worthy of merit. All of its A-List titles were either games you could get on the SNES (and probably done better on the SNES) OR was a game trying to BE a game on the SNES (Zelda Rip-Off, Contra Rip-Off etc.)
The Music everyone has mentioned as well stuck with me from my Turbo games. The Genesis tunes all sounded to me like they came through a rope tied between two coffe cans and the SNES while amazing sonically, all its tunes had a similiar sound to them. Shooters sounded similar, RPG's sounded similar, and on and on. Nothing unique really. That may seem general but I think it holds true.
In my opinion the PCE was the last system that had the unique library going for it. Because cross platform has been the way of things for a long time. You get the exclusive title that draws you in (Now a days its God of War PS3, Halo/ Gears of War Xbox 360 etc.) but other than that, its all cross platform. I don't count the Wii really cause the exclusive titles for those systems are Nintedo's Alist games that have been around for years.