Changes in DT from 90s to 00s

While the 1999-2009 era of DT is my favourite, I do find myself missing the open sounding suspended and/or extended harmony sound present on especially I&W and Awake. Specifically something like the intro to Surrounded, the lighter sections of Learning to Live, etc. Haken are great at having this in their backpocket, but still, I miss it in DT’s sound.

Furthermore, there’s the more playful and I guess generally varied side to the band, like the funkiness of Take the Time, eerieness of Voices, as well as the different harpsichord sections etc. being such a big part of Learning to Live.

Even the «wild» instrumental sections had a much more ambiguous sound back then, like the one in Metropolis pt. 1 being so much tritones, fourths, and fifths, including John’s solo in there.

Ever since SDoIT, when they first did the really metal sound on The Glass Prison, it seems to me their sound has stayed safely within either rather straight metal (all of ToT, 12-Step suite minus Repentance, etc.) with proggy sections still in a metal aesthetic, or softer pretty straight-forward ballads (Answer Lies Witgin, Wither, Far from Heaven, etc.).

Does anyone else find it odd that there was such a sudden shift away from harmonic focus to more technique-based playing and a more focused aesthetic? And do you also find yourself wishing, for example, that instead of the forst 7 minutes of The Ministry of Lost Souls being mostly straight triad chords, there was more of the suspended/extended ethereal sound of the earlier albums?