VLC was never great in its own right.

If there is something historical to talk about, it's how shit Windows was for both not providing basic functionality in a minimally serviceable media player. And worse, how it couldn't get the basics of OS-ing right in being susceptible to DLL hell and other similar issues.

In other platforms where such inadequacies were never present, VLC never became a big deal, because..VLC was never great in its own right.