So Dave Meegan was back on Steve Hogarth's podcast this week, and one of the interesting things he talked about was how Pete had a new lease on life when the band reconvened for the Anoraknophobia sessions. Pete had been in a serious biking accident in early 1999 and had to have his leg reconstructed, and during the course of his recovery he gave up drinking. Apparently this sort of reinvigorated him creatively and also made him somewhat easier to work with, and both H and Meegan talked about how much more involved he was in the overall musical direction of the band from that point on. I do think you can see him being a bit more prominent bass wise on those albums, but I also think this included being more involved in the arrangements and expanding on the other guys' musical ideas. It's interesting too because the first Transatlantic album also happened in the interim between the accident and Anorak (as did most of the recording of Marillion.com). I had heard him talk a little bit about how he used to drink too much in the past, and I vaguely recall reading about the accident in the past, but I hadn't realized how the accident lead to his sobriety and to some extent to the rejuvenation of Marillion in the 2000s. It's possible things wouldn't have worked out as well in Transatlantic without it as well.