Originally Posted by
DrNewGod
I will grant you that it would have taken Byrne, Guice and Perez to agree to put their characters back into the JL to constitute a step up. However, Giffen's JL did add all three of the characters that DC was trying to position as comers at the time (Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and Captain Atom), plus Dr. Fate and Mr. Miracle (who were also getting new titles of their own post-Legends. Now, none of those five actually worked out, but (along with including Batman) there was an attempt to make the JL an elite organization again. So, in-universe, it wouldn't have been a step backwards for Flash, especially had they done so post-Legends.