Being a drummer myself MP was a pretty big inspiration to me back in the day. He's done some amazing things within the drum department for prog metal and no one can take those things away from him. But basically already after 6DOIT I started noticing him re-use alot of his fills, grooves and stuff and I started slowly to loose interest in him as a drummer. Found other bands and other drummers alot more creative so I pretty much stopped following DT, although I did listen occasionally on every new release hoping to find some spark but with no really luck.
I remember alot of times before MP left wondering what DT would have sound like with a diffrent drummer because I had so much respect for JP, JR and JM as musicians and thought they had more passion for their respective craft.
So when MP left I felt nothing more than excitment and interest for the future of DT. With all this being said though i'm only talking about MP as a drummer, he of course did so much more for DT and those things is much harder to replace. That was one of the things why I never actually thought MP would leave DT, I just couldn't picture anyone taking over that chair given how much he did for DT besides playing drums.
It did happen and someone replaced him in the form of the amazing MM which I knew of way before the audition. I knew he was capable of handling anything thrown at him. Could he replace the drum icon Mike Portnoy with his huge fanbase? Probably not but he was a refresing thing for DT as a band.
Fast forward 4 years and seeing this whole debate of MP and DT still raving on I almost feel like:
Please Mike Portnoy come back to DT so we can end this neverending topic on DTF.
I didn't mean to sound harsh but I guess i've never been much of a true fan of any band or member meaning that I don't get very emotional when someone leaves a band that I like. I just accept and move on as I do with alot of things I can't control. There's no point getting worked up over something as trivial. That's just my two cents.