Jon's insistence (lie) that the band must always move forward musically, when in fact he was simply chasing trends. They stayed relevent I suppose but at the expense of good music.

I didn't expect These Days 2 when Crush came around as that album was clearly unique. Writing a dark album when not in a bad space is a lightning in a bottle situation and I guess the themes on These Days just had to come out from somewhere.

However, there is no reason why Jon couldn't have looked at what made the band good and followed that. Of course, there is the possibility that the band was always chasing trends and that would explain why Jon, who never embraced the glam metal 80s thing, was in that world in the first place. Maybe they didn't change, but we all did.