It's pretty true - the band are not churning out quality material, are playing it safe and are catering to an audience that they know they won't lose.
If you were to ask Jon about creating music for a new audience you can be sure that he won't care about it. To him new albums are just a way of keeping the old fans interested. If they don't sell loads he doesn't care anymore because he knows they can sell tickets for tours and make the money that way.

There's no two ways about it, they have become, like many other classic acts, a nostalgia band who play only a couple of more recent tracks in their concerts. It's been debated many times here before as to why that happens so I won't go into it again in too much detail. It's the same reason that I'd expect classic songs if I went to an Aerosmith gig as a casual fan. Hardcore/long term fans always want something different at a gig, whereas a casual fan wants to hear the hits.

As for next year's tour - I will only be buying tickets based on three things. Firstly, date/location of UK gigs. For me it's Milton Keynes or Wembley Stadium only. Secondly, ticket prices - I spent a fortune on a pair of the best seats at the O2 in 2010 and it took me ages to pay it off the credit card. If tickets are more than £50 each including booking fee, it ain't happening. Finally, when they go on sale. If they put tickets on sale before the new album comes out then I'll take the risk of not buying them. When you do that it smacks of over-confidence in yourself, and for once I wish they'd end up falling flat on their faces because of it. After all, you'll only get 2/3 songs from the new album anyway.

I'm quite happy to risk not getting any tickets at all. Look at what happened with the O2 run. They got overconfident in their ability to sell out and ended up reducing tickets to £5 each - and also had to upgrade people to make the front area look full. They claim 100% sell-out on that run (check stats on Wikipedia), but we all know that was a lie!