I think they could never match their amazing indie 80's years - Murmur, Reckoning, Fables and especially Life's Rich Pageant, which is indeed one of the finest albums I've heard (the first 4 songs - possibly the strongest album opening ever; "Begin the Begin", "These Days", "Fall on Me", "Cuyahoga"). I'm not a big fan of their later work (Document and Green are solid, although I hate some songs on Green like "Stand" and "Pop Song '89").
Not a big fan of Out of Time either, although it has "Country Feedback", whose live versions are by far the best R.E.M. song and one of my favorites in music.
Never was a big fan of Automatic for the People. Monster was pretty ambitious, but it fell flat.
The only album I think it stood up to the 80's is "New Adventures in Hi-Fi", with masterpieces like "Leave" and "New Test Leper" on it.
Post-Berry work: "Up" is really cool, but "Reveal" and especially "Around the Sun" were very disappointing.
The next album indicates that it could be very rocking, so I'm looking forward to that.