Nice to hear! I appreciate Sonic 3 & Knuckles overall a little more after having played Mania. Mania is still a 10/10 in my eyes, but it's not without some criticisms. It could have been a giant killer, but just enough of it was "wrong" to prevent it from dethroning S3&K. I want to make a thread about it, but I still need to finish up my Knuckles run and play through as Tails first.
So, you'll be happy to hear that after blowing through Sonic Mania, I've given Sonic 3 another look, and I think I finally "get" it. My appreciation for it has definitely skyrocketed. I started typing out my impressions and how they changed, but it was getting too long for a message, so I'll post it as a Blog entry. I'll just say I really love Hydrocity now, and I'm working at getting better at the rest