Nothing can compare to how they sounded, especially Bruce, in the 80's. He has a hard time hitting a LOT of those high notes these days and it was quite noticeable whereas when I saw them on the Powerslave tour, he was -literally- perfect.
Depends on when you saw them on that tour. You can watch Behind the Iron Curtain and Live After Death and see how huge a difference there is in his voice from the beginning of the tour to the end. By the time the Long Beach shows came around he was pretty much kaput.
That said, up until this last go around, I've always thought he sounded much better than he had in the past. The so-called Maiden England tour last year was the first time I noticed his voice sounding at all weaker. I actually considered that it might be the aforementioned end of the tour problems, but after watching some youtube videos from early on, he was just noticeably weaker in voice this tour.
One thing I do like better about their tours now is the 3 guitar attack. Having that third guitar to play the rhythms during those twin harmony guitar parts really makes a HUGE difference in how they sound as a band live.
Most of the time it just seems to muddle things up, to me. I'd be pretty happy if Janick got the axe, myself.