You picked a pretty careful span there. To my memory, '88-'92 did not yield a bountiful crop of good action movies. Wasn't that the era of "let's find the next Arnie" featuring Lundgrem, Van Damme, and a hopelessly unconvincing Stallone[1]? If so, yeah: that period stank, and precisely because of a slew of derivative, identically shot movies, featuring derivative, identically cast muscle men.
[1] There were others too I think, but they all blur into an over-played VHS mud. Thankfully my local video store was also the off-license. I spent my movie money on cheap wine, it was more fun.