Last I knew, a lot of the old Neversoft staff had moved on before they were turned into the Guitar Hero factory.
You could almost excuse Robomodo for having to deal with the board in Shred and Ride...and maybe you could excuse HD as Activision rushing a cash-in.
I still think deciding to go with a $5 DLC for the revert and initially limiting it to just the DLC maps (before they backed off) is Activision's greatest achievement. Also Metallica...because?