My point was that I understood that he wouldn't want to do so on the first album he was on, and even could understand a certain amount of hesitation that he might have in the writing of the second album, but there's a problem if he still feels the same way when working on the third album. I mean the guy has been in DT longer than Derek Sherinian at this point, and you can be sure that this was never a problem for Derek!
Well, it's not the same if you're a drummer or a keyboardist regarding the writing.. Derek was much more able in that sense to create songs, the most important thing of these being the melodies, than MM, which we know is not a composer drummer (like Donati, Minnemann, and even like Portnoy, who doesn't know how to write from a string or woodwind instrument, but he does from his own drum, which I think is one of his most important talents).. Mangini is a professor and he knows a lot about music, but he doesn't have any experience in composing, so it's logical that he's not contributing in the music as MP did..
And, again, MP was important, but not at all a "major part" of the writing.. JP/JR were and still are the main composers..
Nobody is gonna argue with who creates the majority of the individual parts - since JR's been in the band, it's always been primarily JP and JR. But don't discount MP's involvement in the songwriting process. There were some parts that he himself came up with and he had a major hand in the arranging of the songs. And considering his personality, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the ideas that JP and/or JR came up with were motivated by MP when he was the arranging of songs.
I'm not discounting at all MP's contributions.. But you said before that MP "was a major part of the writing".. Now you're saying he wasn't.. Anyways, about the rest of the comment above I agree.. MP was the secret ingredient in DT's songwriting..
Besides, when you have an amazing musician like MM in the band who has a bunch of ideas, wouldn't you want to give them all consideration to maybe take the band in a different direction or writing style that previously was unexplored? The worst thing that could happen is that some of those ideas get rejected.
Not if those ideas are bad or don't fit with the band.. Yeah, in the end is kind of paradoxical, because I guess that are JP and JR (mainly) who decides which idea is good or not for a certain song.. But you can't accept an idea only because is coming from an "amazing (technically speaking I assume you mean) musician"..
Scotty, what songs was MP pretty instrumental in crafting elements to? I know he is behind the main riff for A Rite of Passage.
Maybe he was listening very often to Misunderstood's chorus when he came up with that one..

what if the novelty DT are speaking about for the new album was a contribution from all members to at least one song as composers?
According to them, that already happened in DT12 with TEI, TLG, TBP, BTV, STR and IT.. And they're all great songs..