Here's a fun band name I thought of...

Your Mom's Favorite Band

Now when guys tease each other as such:

"You listen to Starland Vocal Band?!?  Isn't that your mom's favorite band?"

The answer will be no... because Your Mom's Favorite Band will be a band in and of itself.

Exactly, if they can put forward a good mix of mid- to uptempo material with their heavy material; and do so that works together as a whole package, then DT should have a good second half of their career.

As to their weakness re: lyrics maybe the introduction of a new member will be the catalyst needed. Petrucci and Portnoy wrote most of the lyrics of recent albums, LaBrie does, maybe one song per, and Myung hasn't written a lyric since Metropolis Pt. 2

I'll check out the new album and then we'll chat.

I think they need to abandon the slow stuff though.  Stick with uptempo and melodic mid-tempo.  They haven't done any "slow" stuff that has grabbed my attention since Falling Into Infinity (where the slow stuff was actually the best stuff on the album-- Hollow Years, Take Away My Pain, and Anna Lee... even Speak to Me which was recorded during those sessions but didn't make it onto the album was pretty damn good!)  

From a lyrical standpoint I don't think they've ever fully recovered from Kevin Moore's departure after the Awake album.  He was a great lyricist and I think he inadvertantly challenged the other guys in the band to be better songwriters as their material was better when he was in the band as well.

Did you see the web broadcast of the drummer auditions? Mangini's was the first up and he was amazing.  From a technical standpoint, I think DT chose the right drummer. Now, the question remains about the quality of the new material and the integration of that with Portnoy's material in a live setting.

Overall, I think DT does well when there is a balance between speed/thrash and the melodic pieces. The "palet cleanser" between dinner courses. Too much of either and this band becomes like too many other groups out there.

While they never enjoyed success in the US, Kiwi band Dragon were largely popular in their adopted homeland of Australia?  Enjoy these 4 very unique and interesting arrangements of the same song!

The 90s version was a studio version.  Sometime around 96 or 97 Geoff Downes decided to re-record some of the band's earlier hits with his 90s line-up of the band (of which he was the only remaining original member).  So there was a different drummer, guitarist, and vocalist (John Payne).  The material with Payne was more progressive and less pop oriented.  Payne has a good voice and I really like some of the original material Asia recorded when Payne was their lead singer but I'm not a fan of Payne singing the old John Wetton material. 

Asia's best album was their debut.  imho their best album with John Payne was 2001's Aura.

Original, although if the Greg Lake one would have been a studio version he might have sounded better, was the second option studio as well? it sounded that way to me.
I must say though that the last option acoustic was different, not better than the original but different, and that can be good too. Sometimes I have a hard time with comparing Studio to live to acoustic. Studio usually beats live for me, but the acoustic can beat studio if done right. In this case of these 4 options, my vote went to original studio version.
Acoustic get's second place vote (So I guess it's safe to say that vocalist is preferred  )

The Rock Lobsters version is actually from that CD. :-)

I've not heard any of those you mentioned. Years ago, there was an album, produced here in Australia, called 'Stairways To Heaven'.  It was a dozen or so tracks, all versions of the classic song done in a bunch of different styles.  My personal favourite, although I denied this for years, is the Rolf Harris version, completely with his trademark wobble board.  It is a piece of brilliant nonsense but at the same time, utterly reverent of the original.

YourZ

WCAS version is really cool!