Except it's not. Both of your examples were obvious cash-ins, trading on fading reputations. The Promise is the first time this music has been released for public consumption.

I'd agree there's often a risk of a trade off between energy and spirit and "polish", but the logical extension of your argument is that every artist should just release their demos and be done with it, which *does* work in some instances (!), but I'm sure you're familiar with the saying that art is never finished it's just taken away from you, whether that be literature, music or visual art.

How many times have you looked back at an old piece of work and seen something in it you wished you could have improved or curse your youthful mistakes?