Spyro the Dragon was actually the first game I got and one of the first games I ever played. I was a huge fan of the original trilogy and Spyro was my favourite game series until Ratchet & Clank. I recently got the games from PSN to play them again actually. I still have the disc copies of those somewhere, I just don't know where they are.
About the new games… I haven't played Spyro games that came after "Enter the Dragonfly", but I would probably give them a try if I ever have a chance. I'm open-minded even for Skylanders, even though they're not exactly Spyro games but anyway.