One has to remember, the commies existed in an eco system where world champions were either sporadic (swimming) or non existant (athletics) where europeans happened every 4 years, There were no European Games, no combined European Championships and almost all the competitive countries in the Olympic style sports were Commonwealth, European or the USA - in that system, Commonwealth Games were a major, and hugely useful event, arguably the third biggest swimming and athletics meets in the world.
Times Change. The commies has not entirely changed with them.
Originally one of the keys to the CWG was that there were no team sports. but times changed - in my view, rightly. Olympics have now adopted rugby sevens and hockey, two very Commonwealth Sports but Netball and Cricket still exist outside the Olympic fold.
The CWG are outside the Olympic fold. That should be sold as a good thing, because not everyone is overly happy with the olympic fold at the moment - Bach, like some sort of Medieval Pope has taken the IOC in a rather dark direction on a number of issues IMHO. The CWG is its own beast - it doesn't pretend to be universal, it doesn't sell itself as that - it's a Friendly Games, a meeting of peoples with some painful histories but bright futures; it has its own story, a post colonial story (for that reason, I do wish there was a way to integrate Ireland and the US into the games, perhaps as 'observers', acknowledging the historical link without reentering the organisation.
in Birmingham, the swimming meat was a class meet - Any meet with AUS, CAN, NZL, ENG, SCO, RSA, SGP and JAM may not be the World Champs, but that's a quality meet. The Athletics was, as it has been for a while, a bit of a parsons egg, though it was all fun. The M1500 was awesome, as was the w800, and w10,000; and the MJavelin. The crowds were good and athletes and fans alike enjoyed it. It doesn't have to be full throttle worlds best kill and be killed - a bit of friendly rivalry is sufficient