I watched that interview he did the other week and the outcry over him calling PT a side project seems even more ridiculous now. He was talking about his career as a whole and how it started with No-Man and PT when it was formed was basically the side project to that, and when PT took off the focus shifted more towards that and No-Man became the side project essentially. But judging on some of the response on FB and reddit, and the headlines of some articles you would have thought he said something outrageous.
It's been a while since SW made an album I really liked (GFD, but even in retrospect a lot of that love has faded) and with Raven, HCE and TTB his albums have fallen lower and lower on my 'best of the year' lists, even though I've still enjoyed them. So while my hype for a new SW album in 2020 isn't nearly as big as it was a decade ago, I think the fact he is shaking things up and going for something different is still keeping the spark alive for me. Even though none of the songs so far have wowed me, I'm still very much interested to hear the new stuff once it comes out. SW talked in the interview about how many bands find their niche or winning formula and they build a career out of that but he was always wants to try new things. I think 'admire' is a good word. There are bands I like more than SW that I feel less admiration for because they are sticking to what they know. With SW you can tell a lot of fans won't like this and some are even outraged about it, and he's doing it because he wants to.