In my opinion, EURRAIL passes, which at one time were a bargain (20 or 30 years ago ), have gotten to be too expensive. [You are paying for countries you may never visit.]
EUROPASSES, which give you a limited number of days in long period, can prove to be very cost effective. In many cases with proper planning the 3, 4 or 5 country versions can be the cheapest. Sometimes dedicated country passes could be real prize winners.
Overnight trips in coach used to be the biggest bargains, you get from point A to point B, arriving early in the morning, having saved a night in hotel costs (sometimes feeling like a pretzel, if you share a compartment with 5 other people...). The European rail network have added so many high speed lines that finding overnight trips (in coach only) is becoming very difficult; it is now also very hard to find first class coaches on overnight trains.
Even with some of the negatives I have noted above, the balance tips in the favor of a railpass over individual tickets if for no other reason than the fact that you can go to interesting places at the spur of the moment--and this is what makes travel exciting.