I mean, I really liked TA - although musically speaking, I think it did suffer because they wanted to tell a story. I felt like Arjen's album The Theory of Everything had some similar problems. Although both were stellar, after their first listen through - a lot of the experience of it died off and became less interesting, to me. So out of like 40 something songs (for TA) I only ended up regularly putting on probably 9 or so songs consistently, and beyond that maybe 12 or so if I'm in the mood for certain others.
Now that's pretty good, but whereas I really didn't like D12 much after the initial romance; it's disappointing how much potential I think there was in TA. IMO, if DT had spent 1 - 3 more months polishing it, it could have been really great. I am super excited about the live DVD though, I really want to see it as soon as possible.
Anyway, ignoring that spiel, if TA is anything it's a LaBrie / Petrucci / Rudess album. Not sure how you could exclude LaBrie given how much he is on / puts into the album, and I think it will be even more pronounced when the live version is filmed.
Can I also say that I loved James's Nafaryus style vocals? If we could have more Nafaryus / Victoria (SFAM) / BC and SL cover type vocals, man that would put me in a happy fucking spot.