Nah, the new admirals that suck.
Before the old admirals they had sengoku and two others (Garp should be one but refused). The VAs of Garps time were also pretty strong like Tsuru. Later, sakazuki, Saul, kuzan and others seemed way stronger than VAs that we saw pre-ts.
Current generation seems to be way weaker. They had to pick civilians for a reason.