But who is to say how big they "should be"?
I checked out a few of the new tunes on YT and it's clear why they aren't bigger; the songs aren't there. There are good moments, but they seem to get lost in the blandness of many of the others. The long song, New World Today, was a total and complete mess. I get that the "sudden left turn syndrome" has been done well by Portnoy's other bands before (see: Dream Theater), but that song seems to randomly bounce from idea to idea with no sense of purpose whatsoever and then the song is over. Bummer, as the lead guitar that kicked off the song was pretty cool, but then the trainwreck happened.
Maybe it is not fair to call Soto the weak link, but I am definitely someone who finds his voice and most of the vocal melodies pretty bland and forgettable. You either connect with a voice or you don't, and I do not connect with his voice in any way at all. Because they wanted to make it a direct competition, Soto, from what I've heard, cannot come to the greatness of JLB. La Brie might be very hit or miss live (always has been for me), but he always brings it in the studio, and it is actually hilarious that some Portnoy fans (who love to hate JLB online) talk shit on JLB while praising Soto. I get it, it's the internet, where people are allowed to have bad opinions, but that is one of the more LOL-worthy ones of recent years.