Eh, I haven’t seen much (if any) love for Licence to Kill. I’d say that one’s pretty widely regarded as bad, or at least a misstep.
I think it’s been reappraised in some circles as we’ve had grittier 007 outings since then. And aside from the opening of Diamonds Are Forever it’s the only time we’ve seen Bond truly going rogue.
I met John Glen, the director of LTK and TLD (plus much more), a couple of years ago and he said that Dalton’s Bond was ahead of its time and was much closer than the previous actors as to how Fleming had depicted Bond in the novels.