Indeed, I like FII a lot and it definitely breaks the "classic" feel a bit. Yeah, it's sonically colourful, it's overlong, it should have Knife instead of ... (fill in for yourself, lately I've been thinking I wouldn't throw out anything, instead I'd utilise the double CD method, because it really helps - if the CDs are a bit shorter than the norm, it doesn't wear you out, you have a break in the middle and you get more music to the fans - I'm talking about Maiden and Metallica and their last releases, where the double format helped. In fact, it helped with SDOIT also.
Maybe if I weren't following the band's Facebook, I would be less concerned with the whole "publicity stunt" angle. And I'm not talking about all those "Bring back Portnooooy" comments. But - merely from what has been thrown into my news feed - ovbiously The Astonishing has not been as successful as they hoped (I'm not talking about commercial performance, but more about the overall reception and word of mouth etc) and at first they couldn't let it go - their FB page has thrown around videos of fans winning tickets and being onstage and so on, they kept talking about how amazing the album was yet the ticket sales were progressively worse and now they come with this tour.
I can't even properly express why, maybe I don't even really know myself, but something rubbed me off the wrong way lately with the band and I have not been in a DT mood lately. With James endorsing clothes, Jordan fucking around with his iPads all the time, Petrucci fucking up the last album yet talking about a book and with that last "burnt-out" interview by MM, I feel weird about the band right now. And believe me, I was (and probably still am) a huge fan, it's just I'm currently in the trough now.