Has Petrucci's guitar playing become simpler over the years?

[adastra]

He used to have less distortion in his lead sound in the good old days? I don't know if that's true but back in the Ibanez days he had more clean and spanky sound and little more funky style leads... ?

His playing sounded better when he was endorsed by Ibanez! 

[CrimsonSunrise]

I dunno.  For a non-guitar player like myself, I don't think it's gotten simpler, just different.   It's got to be hard to be innovative after 25 years of playing the same style of music.  Someone else mentioned how they thought style/dynamic changed when JR joined the band.  I'd agree with that.  Once JR arrived the solo load was more shared than it had been prior to JR.  Much more of a duo dynamic then JP with some keys mixed in like it was prior to JR.  I still think he's innovative.  Just listen to BAI.  Again, after putting out the amount of material DT has, it has got to be insanely difficult to come up with new ideas and still appear "fresh".  Maybe we as listeners actually get acclimated to the great playing, and after 20+ years it starts to sound "Simpler".  Think of some of the greatest guitar players of all time, a lot of them haven't made it through 25 years of dynamic material like JP has.  The ones who have, have they really been innovative, changing, and more complex after that length of time?

[gentaishinigami]

From a player point of view the older stuff seems much easier to play to me.  The new stuff is gets mental and all over the place (generally - not always).  I only started playing in ~2000 so it's not that I have more experience with the older stuff.  I started at Metropolis Pt.2 and worked my way backwards.

As stated above, I have no idea how the man can even come up with riffs anymore.  My head explodes trying to write one good riff, much less decades worth.  Then again, I'm not a very good musician.   

I did have a dream the other night that JP was teaching me how to play Raw Dog!  That was pretty epic!   

[2Timer]

I haven't been on here in a while, and admittedly I didn't look through every post in this thread, so hopefully this reply isn't exactly like someone else's (otherwise I could've saved a lot of time and just posted t 'this', but...
I agree with the OP. Here is why I think this is. Simply put, I feel that they know they don't have anything to prove anymore. They've achieved 'benchmark' status years ago. Everyone knows what they can do with their instruments now, so I think maybe they just focus on writing simpler, catchier tunes. Their newer stuff seems much more riff and hook-based to me.  I'm actually welcoming it. I think we have enough Metropolis's and the like. This is what DT is maturing into, IMO.