I heard RD's story was laughable and generic while PoR has among the best stories in the series

^ you heard wrong, i really liked the story.

the story was great, more characters, more levels, more variety in plotline setup

the only bad thing was the 1st chapter was actually on the bit too hard side while the other chapters were fine

I think Path of Radiance was better than Radian Dawn, mostly because PoR was my first FE game XD. Still, I actually think the graphics in RD are a little worse (not at cutscenes or the battle scenes, but the battlefield graphics because the characters are so small now you can hardly distinguish them). Also I didn't like how RD made you switch between all the characters. I wanted to keep my team through the entire game, not train this team for ten chapters and then abandon them for the next ten to train a bunch of new characters. But I forgive it because RD had Ike, Nephenee and Mia =D

Overall, I thought PoR was better, but RD is still a good game.

A few reviewers said that, but I doubt they truly put the time into Path of Radiance to be familiar with the story in the first place.  Radiant Dawn picks up three years after the events that took place in Path of Radiance and tied up all the loose ends and fleshed out the backstory even more.  I couldn't wait to see story sequences between battles, the narrative was that good.  FE8 and 9 shared an excellent and well told story.

I don't think either of the last two Fire Emblems had a particularly great story. (Disclaimer: this post coming from someone who cares little for cinematic gaming.) Path of Radiance is pretty generic and cliched; don't get me wrong, what it sets out to do, it does well - but there's not much originality there. I was fine with the plot, since I played through all of Fire Emblem 3 entirely in Japanese text, with absolutely no idea what was going on. You could say I don't play the FE games for story. 

Radiant Dawn is certainly more complicated... although I'd cite it as a classic case of why making a story more convoluted doesn't make it better. Oftentimes the characters are fighting for reasons that are sketchy at best, outright ridiculous if you stop and think about it. (Two words: blood contract. Possibly the most absurd plot device I've seen in the past decade.) I'll stop here to avoid spoilers, you get the picture. The Fire Emblem games work fine as far as B-movie drama, just don't try to pretend they're anything more than that.

Calling the story laughable and generic just isn't something anyone who has actually played the final chapter could do with a straight face. However, I can't blame you from avoiding the game due to reviews. Let me go ahead and recommend that you buy it. It is actually, imo, the best in the series from a gameplay perspective, and imo, from a story perspective as well.

I too enjoyed older FEs quite a lot more than the last two. From a gameplay perspective I would choose FE: Thracia 776 anyday, it´s my favorite and it kept me intense in every single chapter.

I liked Radiant Dawn more than its predecessors. as the ability to use Kurthnaga was giving me one of my biggest wishes for the game.