Just listened to TA in full and proper today. I feel like it's time for them to lighten up a bit. Everything from Octavarium onwards was so heavy and difficult to listen to - either with demanding and massive albums lengths, grimdark atmospheres, or technical up the wazoo... when this is the time in their career that they should be winding down a bit. There's already some younger bands doing classic Dream Theater better than Dream Theater (compare sth like The Mountain to ADTOE), going heavy was never their forte, and they can't be more innovative and progressive than other bands in this scene either without mixing in some stuff that's waaaaay out of the left field for them.
It's time for some lightness and whimsy and cheese and personal opinions in lyrics and influences shining through, but not the same old sides of the same old influences. DT12 was a fine step in that direction, but they had to go off and have another single-album experiment after that.
Most of their career post-Awake consisted of single album experiments (FII, SDoIT was supposed to be one, ToT, DT12 with the shortness of the songs to some extent, TA full on) and doubling down on classic DT when they feel like they need to reconnect to their audience (SFAM, O8, ADTOE), when you think about it. Which is fine, because when they went "let's just write an album" twice post-O8, the response was mixed. The problem is that the experimental albums don't change all that much in the riffage, the vocal melodies, the lyrics, the structures - this was the first time some of it changed, but it probably won't be carried forward, because it was a musical and you can't keep touring it.
So idk. They will probably whip out another reconnection album again, they're on the schedule for one. But I can't imagine what new things they'll have to say on that if everyone gets even less of a contribution than on ADTOE.
Edit: Tell you what I don't want though. Yes, I do want an outside producer, but I don't know about Jens Bogren. He has produced quite a lot of proggy albums since 2013 with good results, but I don't see them working together any more than I see them with someone like Steven Wilson. I am not sure I want Mangini lyrics because I don't even know if he has ever written them before, that would be like saying you want Jordan's lyrics. I don't want anything from the 90's to come back, apart from the whimsy I mentioned. Those were records made by a very different lineup in a very different time in different circumstances, saying I'd like the heaviness of Awake doesn't make any sense. DT still does heavy, but their heavy now is The Enemy Inside-heavy.