I also think the fact that they blame the slow process on the law suits is ridiculous. There are a lot of bands who have fought many problems and still put out albums. If you want to put out an album, you put out an album. It feels like the members of Tool are just way too comfortable with their legacy and current status. There are some artists like Steven Wilson, who puts out music frequently, not just through his main projects (PT, solo) but also a number of side projects (Blackfield, No-Man, Bass Communion, IEM, Storm Corrosion), and even though quality of music is always subjective, you can just tell that he has a lot of great ideas, and he puts them into motion. He never struggles with material, and an amazing album like Fear of a Blank Planet resulted in an equally amazing EP like Nil Recurring, with leftover material from that album.
Tool to me are kinda like the polar opposite. I've always felt like Tool are just barely scraping by to get enough good material together, and I think it really showed on 10 000 Days. That album was a mixed bag of the amazing quality we expect from Tool, with some material that just wasn't up to the standard we want. I think they did a good job of masking it earlier. Albums like Aenima and Lateralus are pretty much perfect, and as long as we get near flawless albums after 5 year breaks, it's easy to ignore that. On 10k Days it kinda showed that they were struggling more IMO, and apart from the long time spans between albums, the band hasn't really put out EPs or other leftover material. To me it basically feels like Tool have to work so much harder than most bands to come up with good material. What they squeeze out in 6 years is equal to what SW squeezes out in 6 months. But as long as their next album is really good, it won't matter.