To me, due to Portnoy's involvement on most of his main albums and the nature of his music, Neal's discography post-Spock's, and with Transatlantic, is an extension of the Dream Theater world to me, like LTE, JP's albums, and some of the other member's work outside DT. A new Neal Morse album is the closest thing to a new MP-era DT album, as far as it being proggy and having those familiar rhythms. I've said that Neal's albums should really be Spock's Theater. I actually haven't gotten around to JCTE yet, but I think that one was something more of an experiment, so not necessarily something Neal would do if he were to keep putting out prog albums without MP and Randy. With Neal's main prog albums, I think it's a matter of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'. Neal has said before that Portnoy just understands what needs to happen in his music. MP has praised Neal Morse on multiple occasions, even saying he is one of the best songwriters and rock composers of all time, up there with Lennon, McCartney, Wilson, Simon, etc.. Randy sometimes sounds too good with Portnoy, such a tight rhythm section. I'd rather get consistent material than not. If I want diversity of lineups I'll listen to The Flower Kings. Neal just needs to mix things up a little more and not rely on his bag of tricks. I think he's been doing that to some extent on his more recent albums, but looking back on Spock's albums those were really diverse in sound and style. I think that's the idea behind The Neal Morse band, as those albums do stick out a little more than his last 2-3 solo prog albums. The new Transatlantic album is the same way, though his 'edit' is more like a typical Neal solo album. The extended is the full album, and everything works really well in both but the extended version is where we hear different things going on all around.