Quoted from Rarehero:

It's under his direction. You can "blame the licensor", but you can still have an eye for detail & guide your artists to do something nice within licensor guidelines.
I once heard a story about Ritchie telling Borg he was nuts for using Dirty Donny for Metallica...no one would want that type of art on a MANLY METAL game....and that's why they did the Photoshop "Roadcase" Premium. Met paved the way for a new and exciting pinball art era for Stern...not sure why Steve never got on board.

Quoted from Yoko2una:

After "Kid Multiball" was unleashed on the world, nothing that ever comes out now will claim the title for the worst.

Quoted from Vitty:

I'm curious what everyone would think if Stern decided each LE was to be $12,800 delivered, each Premium was to be $9800 delivered, and each Pro $7000 delivered. They could then add a few more things to compete with JJP on the mechs/bling department. Would we all be willing to pay that multiple times a year like we do now? That's always the question I ponder. I now get a couple LE's a year, but if the price were north of 10k it'd be a different mental hurdle to climb and I probably wouldn't end up with quite so many. Food for thought anyways. For now I'm glad they are south of that 10k mark and am pretty pleased with what is offered.