Good WDADU discussion. For the record, like a lot of fans, my problems with it are threefold (not necessarily in any order):
-Vocals: I don't like them. I just don't. If that was the only time I had ever heard Charlie, I would come away with the impression that I do not like Charlie and he isn't a great vocalist. And on top of that, I probably would never have pursued anything else of his to find out what kind of singer he is beyond WDADU. My opinion softened a bit toward him specifically when I did hear some other things he did through the years. WDADRU is fantastic, but James does unfortunately sound tired and his voice sounds thin. When he and Charlie duet on TLF and Metropolis, the contrast between James sounding tired and thin (but still pretty darned good--I'm not criticizing) with Charlie's warmer, fuller tone made me take notice. Then hearing him on his own solo stuff that is written specifically for his voice, it was great to hear him singing in a way that played to his strengths rather than trying to pull something off that didn't fit his voice. That's when I realized that, given the right music, Charlie is actually a pretty good singer. But the material on WDADU is not suited for him. That, combined perhaps with him just not yet being as mature and developed as a singer led to a vocal performance on that album (and the few live performances he did) that a lot of people (myself included) find off-putting.
-Song-writing: There are lots of really cool moments on WDADU. But there are also lots that don't work nearly as well. Kind of like Charlie's vocals, if this was the first album I had heard from the band, a lot of it would have been off-putting to the point that I'm not sure I would have tried to follow this band at all. Now, part of that is just that I was not yet into prog, so some of what they were doing just would not have been accessible to me. I&W was such a great album, in part, because they took prog and made it accessible to metal heads. WDADU didn't really accomplish that, IMO. The seeds of some of the things the band is known for and that distinguishes them were definitely there. But it just didn't work in some cases. For example, there are a lot of turn-on-a-dime abrupt transitions between seemingly unrelated parts. That is kind of a signature DT thing. But it catches people off guard and can be jarring to the point of taking the listener out of the song. They got better at structuring songs with the help of outside influences on I&W, and continued to hone that on subsequent albums. IMO, it wasn't until FII that they finally mastered having those sort of abrupt transitions without them feeling abrupt. Another area where they matured significantly AFTER WDADU was in writing vocal melodies. There were definitely spots on WDADU that just don't sound very polished.
-Production: It's been said before. It is an issue. The album sounds flat and lifeless. All things being equal, I think a lot of us can get past this. But when coupled with the other issues on the album, I think it is understandable that the production issues become more glaring and hard to get over for a lot of people.
That's it in a nutshell for me. And I don't think it should be surprising that a lot of people feel similarly. It just is what it is. Because of the band's success, a lot of us have gone back and revisited the album and learned to appreciate a lot that it has to offer. But that still does not keep it from ranking at or near the bottom of the DT discography.