The area is missing energy and a 'feeling of moving forward'. It's stale. While other strips have improved and changed, Queen East has just been coasting and getting scruffy around the edges. It's not a bad place, it's just that you would expect it to be better considering the residents' ample resources and the setting. If you look up the demographic trends of the area on the city's website, seniors are area's the largest growing group (the working aged demographic is pretty much stalled) so the greying population would explain some of it.
And it's not all self-inflicted. A considerable amount of anger about the Tuggs. Inc. deal probably came from a general sense of more inertia being imposed on the area. And that restaurant disaster at Woodbine Beach confirmed those feelings.
However, the area has many, many fine nail salons.