It would have been easy for Simon and Raja to produce an album that was similar to the first two, or completely abandoning the sound of those two albums and going for something different - they instead produced an album with the same feeling as the other two, but was much more diverse. It's very easy to sell out, let's not forget.
LPs don't have to get worse, IMO it's all about taste anyway, and you can't say it will be an 'abomination' because you don't know.