I earned my MCSE in 2006 and was an MCT from 2006-2017. I also earned my MCTS in SharePoint, along with multiple MOS Master certifications.I'm also one of these MCSE's that got blanded out because of all the paper MCSE types and brain dump types that cheapened the exams down. I'm proud of getting it (it was long ago, mind you), but when I started seeing job ads, followed by colleges running ads "Get your MCSE and make $65000", well, there was a very large carrot to draw people into doing the wrong thing.
I gave up my MCT in 2017 for several reasons.
1) They doubled the annual fee for renewing the MCT. It's silly that any vendor chargers a person money TO TEACH THEIR CONTENT, but it's ridiculous to double the fee.
2) The quality of the training materials plummeted over the years. In the early 2000s, their stuff was rather good. But they attempted to cut costs and the quality dropped. Eventually, they hired subcontractors to create content, slide decks, and labs and none of it had any quality control. I would set up labs verbatim and they would blow up every single time. I found myself constantly apologizing for both the content and the labs.
3) The market was flooded with MCSEs. Both legitimately earned and paper MCSEs. The supply was greater than the demand.
I haven't taken a Microsoft exam since 2016. I've heard their new exams are better, but I have no idea. I'm working on finishing up Linux+ and Data+ before working on some AWS, ISACA, and (ISC)2 exams.