I thought moving from comics shops towards digital as the primary means of distributing comics would improve things. Comics shops enabled great small press things like Love and Rockets and Stray Bullets initially, but then all that died out and we just had the big two pretty much only selling things to guys who frequent comics shops and the ecosystem got very incestuous and conservative. Hasn't happened yet, although now there are superhero comics pandering to both tumblr girls and comic book store boys so there's movement of some sort.
The Invisibles. Starman. John Ostrander's Spectre run. Astro City. Greg Rucka's Batwoman. There gave been good relatively straight takes on superheros, they're just few and far between.I've seen comics that can hold the attention of adults and also involve superheroes, but those comics also generally involve the deconstruction of the superhero paradigm.