Indeed. For quite a long time, Canon's kit lenses were really pretty poor, going back to film days - the 28-90 and 28-105 f4-5.6 were pretty woeful (even though the 28-80 and 28-105 f3.5-5.6 were really quite good). Certainly the manual focus ring on cheaper lenses is still dreadful - one of the worst is the 50mm f1.8 Mk II.
Quite why they can suddenly do much better in terms of optical quality at more or less the same price point is a bit of a mystery...