Every Sandman story arc, ranked
Yes, I've just re-read it.
Preludes and Nocturnes - C. This is pretty replacement-level; it's table setting, and a calibration of what exactly the story is and what it's about. An essential part of the plot, but it's neither the best nor the worst part of it.
The Doll's House - B. The first solid arc of Sandman, the one that mostly convinces people to keep reading (or that should tell them definitively this is not for them). By the end of this arc almost all of the major players have been introduced, including several that will only become major much later on.
Dream Country - C. The first, and worst, collection of one-shots. Calliope is the worst one-off story in the run. This is very skippable, though the specific story A Midsummer Night's Dream is tangentially related to the mainline plot. Much as I love A Dream of a Thousand Cats, this volume is a bit of a slump. I still don't understand the plot of Facade.
A Dream of You - D. I'm not qualified to comment in a nuanced way on the portrayal of a trans woman in this other than to note that it's hard to imagine a reading of it that doesn't find that it has aged very poorly. Beyond that, though, this is kind of the low point for the series; it's a digression that hardly features Dream or his character arc; most characters here are never seen again, and the story as a whole never really comes together or seems to cohere. This is definitely something you can skip... except of course that it introduces Thessaly, who is very important to the main plot. This is, in my opinion, the most frustrating aspect of the whole work.
Fables and Reflections - B. This is a nice set of one-shots. While this is largely skippable, a lot of the individual stories here are quite good; it's a long and uneven collection.
Brief Lives - B. This is a good arc, and it's also where a lot of the plot threads start coalescing together towards the ending.
The World's End - A. This is the best of the three collections of loose stories.
The Kindly Ones - A. Really just one very long story, The Kindly Ones is by far the most shit-happening that Sandman gets; whereas most of the series is spent noodling around vibes and themes, Events Happen here. This is really the lynchpin around which the entire series spins.
The Wake - S. The only reason I chose to re-read Sandman is because I knew this was waiting for me at the end. The one-off stories that form the back half of this volume are a good epilogue, but really I mostly mean the wake itself, the first three issues, which to me are the high point of the series.