I don't think they did it out of a desire to be fashionable. I think there was some interview circa HAND that it was because there were so many extra parts on the album it made sense. Though it's strange how sparse HAND is keyboard-wise so I don't know. They also brought in someone with the tinniest guitar sound to recrate big distorted parts.

It might have been a direct reaction to how much the Bounce tour relied on sampled guitar parts. Truthfully I wish David had a bigger role that tour with some dirty distorted organ tones to fill out the sound instead of being tied to the click/grid.