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hankronLiving in a home that subscribes to a lot of magazines (I subscribe to about 3, the rest are women's magazines), I can say that there are very few magazines worth the paper the are printed on-- and that includes the ones I subscribe to!
As I'm just one reader, I don't expect all the material to be made for me (I don't laugh at all the strips on the comics page). However, I consider an issue a good one if 1) Teaches me something that I can apply to my life or collecting or work or whatever. A guide to collecting baseball bats or techniques for storing prints or whatever ... 2) Has an article that is interesting if useless. For example, I enjoy being introduced to an area I don't intend on collecting in or hearing an interesting story ... 3) Cool pictures-- eye candy. As we all know, sometimes the ads are the best part of a magazine.
Lastly, no ultra-fluff and super gloss for super gloss' sake and general vomitousness. Most magazines are like cotton candy-- look pretty, but all sugar and your stomache doesn't feel so good when you're done. I'd rather have a 1/2 page Xerox that told me something useful, than an 200 page magazine that was a waste of my time-- seriously.
Lastly, as someone who gets bored on those afternoon and lies down on the couch and pages through the other magazines on the coffee table, I can say that a few (I said a few) of the women's magazines are nicely designed and instructive. It's no coincidence that people at parties have noticed that I no longer need to repair the holes in my jeans with packaging tape and have started correctly prounouncing a woman's anatomy. Had thought many of those terms were names for Italian car parts.