James is the most important member of the band.
Seriously, every good album is good *because* James is on point. Obviously this is why Images and Words and Awake are the best albums DT has put out, they were before the food poisoning incident and James doesn't hold back at all on either album.
This is also why the new albums suck. Well, okay, suck may be a harsh choice of words, but nothing after Awake lives up to those first two albums (of the JLB era). If DT want to release a new killer album that will be remembered as fondly as the early ones, they need to push James to give it his all. The only point on the newest album that even comes close is after the orchestral section of IT, "MOTHERS FOR THEIR CHILDREN!!" Yeah, that's the highlight of the album, no doubt. And it's because of James.
Now they just need to write a whole album like that, and we'll be talking.